This week's Product Roundup features launches in the UK, UAE, Sweden, Korea, and Canada.
As is customary at this point, we'll start with Z-word...
Zillow Rentals is now live as a connected app inside Google Gemini and Gemini Spark, allowing prospective tenants to schedule property visits.
A press release on Zillow's website said:
Renters can ask Gemini to find apartments with tours available on Zillow—'Find me a pet-friendly one-bedroom in Seattle with tours on Zillow' for example—and the Zillow connected app brings up matching listings and available booking times directly in Gemini. One click takes the renter to Zillow to confirm the booking, pick a time and lock it in.
When a Gemini user asks about tour availability on rental listings, they can book directly through Zillow’s connected app. Available booking times surface in Gemini based on the property’s configuration—instant tour-enabled listings show a 'Book a Tour' option powered by Zillow’s infrastructure, while all other properties offer a 'Request a Tour' option.
"Getting a tour scheduled is the point when a search becomes real. It’s important that Zillow shows up for renters at this moment, which can now happen directly in Gemini", said Michael Sherman, SVP at Zillow Rentals.
"Renters don’t all start their search the same way. What matters is that Zillow is there when they are ready to take a real next step — that includes inside one of the largest AI assistants in the world."
Meanwhile, Zillow has launched Zillow Pro, its premium membership for real estate agents.
According to a press release:
Membership equips agents with exclusive tools built to help them meet clients where they already are—on Zillow—and work together seamlessly.
Agents can invite any buyer or seller in their network to collaborate with them on Zillow, and once that contact accepts, agents get visibility into their Zillow activity along with the tools to help them know when and how to best reach out. Nearly 20,000 agents have already used Zillow Pro in its beta version, and buyers working with agents who have a membership are 80% more likely to meet with their agent face-to-face and 50% more likely to move forward in their search.
Cynthia Taylor, senior vice president of product at Zillow, said:
"Real estate runs on relationships, and we see time and again the agents who win are the ones who show up at the right moment with the right information. Now any agent can have the tools and visibility to do that across their entire business. This is our commitment to helping agents get more out of the platform where their clients are browsing, dreaming and planning."
REALTOR.ca is collaborating with TD Insurance to make it easier for Canadians to explore insurance options that are relevant to the type of property they’re viewing.
As part of this collaboration, users can seamlessly access TD Insurance resources from eligible REALTOR.ca listings to explore coverage options or request a quote across residential and commercial properties.
Speaking on LinkedIn, CEO Scott Neil said:
"This collaboration with TD Insurance is another step toward that goal, making it easier for Canadians to access relevant insurance information as they prepare for what's next."
Bayut, the specialist real estate vertical and part of Dubizzle Group, has launched "Sales History and Rental History" on Dubai transactions, powered by Dubai Land Department data.
The new features give users access to verified historical sales and rental transactions at the property level, helping them better understand real market performance beyond listing prices.
Property seekers can find historical sales and rental transactions by community and building, transaction dates and verified sale or rental values, property specifications including unit size and type, comparable historical transactions, and detailed property information to support valuation and investment analysis.
Muneeb Farrukh, Vice President of Product at Bayut, said:
“One of the biggest challenges for buyers, sellers and investors has always been understanding what properties are actually transacting for, not just what they're being advertised for. Bayut has long invested in making Dubai’s property transaction data more accessible through Dubai Transactions. With Sales History and Rental History, we are taking that capability further by bringing verified sales and rental records closer to the property journey itself, so users can understand not only what is being advertised, but what properties are actually transacting for.
"For buyers, sellers, tenants, landlords and investors, this creates a more practical way to benchmark prices, assess rental performance and make decisions with greater confidence. These features are about turning trusted data into actionable insight, and they represent another step in our commitment to building a more transparent, informed and trusted real estate ecosystem."
Dubizzle Group says the feature has seen strong early traction with over 59,000 users and 179,000+ visits since launch, including over 4,500 daily users.
Zigbang has launched an AI-powered chatbot on Korea's most popular messaging app, KakaoTalk.
Users can view Zigbang listings, actual transaction prices, and market prices using natural language in the KakaoTalk ChatGPT chat window. Users can ask questions just as they would in a regular KakaoTalk chat, and the Zigbang AI agent will recommend the optimal results.
Useful features include an integrated view of listings and actual transactions, conditional search, property details and transaction prices, and regional market price statistics.
According to a press release:
ChatGPT for Kakao was created to allow KakaoTalk users to easily experience AI in their daily lives. To date, leading services from various fields, such as Olive Young, Musinsa, Hyundai Department Store, Samjeomsam, MyRealTrip, and Saramin, have joined us.
Here, Zigbang meets with 11 million users who have signed up for ChatGPT for Kakao as a leading service in the real estate sector. This aligns with Zigbang’s mission to enable anyone to easily and fairly obtain real estate information without the hassle of physically visiting stores. [Translated from Korean]
Rightmove has expanded its conversational AI feature to individual property listings. Users can now ask questions about homes and receive instant responses based on property details and local area information, powered by a combination of information from the property listing and wider property market insights.
Tarah Lourens, chief technology and operations officer at Rightmove, said:
“Finding a property is only part of the journey for home-hunters. The next step is understanding whether it fits their unique requirements, and learning more about the surrounding area.
“Our latest innovation enables them to do this in their own words, ensuring they don’t miss key information provided by agents. We’re continuing to build out ‘Ask Rightmove’, experimenting and testing along the way, to ensure it provides the best experience possible for home-movers on our platform.”
The feature was developed in partnership with Google Cloud, using Google Gemini models and geospatial data from Google Maps—a similar play was launched by Realtor.com in the United States recently.
Maureen Costello, vice president, UKI and SSA, Google Cloud, added:
“Our collaboration with Rightmove is focused on giving listings more local depth. By utilising our Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, we are helping Rightmove integrate Gemini models with mapping data to give home-hunters a clearer, more practical picture of a property’s surroundings.”
Pararius, the Dutch real estate marketplace, has launched an app for ChatGPT.
According to a LinkedIn post by founder Jasper de Groot, "fewer and fewer people start their search with Google, and more and more with an AI chat. We see that in our data."
"Pararius has appeared as an app in ChatGPT, the first Dutch housing platform [to do so]!
"You type 'two-bedroom house in Amsterdam under €2,000 with balcony or garden or roof terrace' and you will immediately see our current offer.
"Will this become the way people search for a home? Nobody knows. We're not the first portal globally to make this move, but being early in our market matters. Over the past year we've seen LLM-referred traffic to our platforms grow rapidly, so this isn't a bet on a distant future. If renters start their search in an AI chat, we want to be there. Better too early than too late, and it fits our broader strategy of further diversifying our traffic channels."
Pararius is part of the Treehouse umbrella of brands, including Huurwoningen, Realstats, Rentaroof, Toitpourtoi, Pararius Office and Leadflow.
Real estate agents and brand owners who have entered into a strategic partnership with Hemnet can now make 'Under-the-radar' listings available to Hemnet's audience at the very earliest stage of the sales process.
The new offering helps buyers find more homes on Hemnet earlier in the sales process before they reach the open market. Listings are shown under the "Upcoming" category and are marked as "Under-the-radar".
Jonas Gustafsson, CEO at Hemnet, said:
“With Hemnet Under-the-radar, we give our strategic partners the opportunity to combine their pre-market strategy with Hemnet's reach from day one. This allows agents and sellers to test market interest very early in the process, while more buyers get a better overview."
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