Ten Questions With Troy Rushton, CEO of Realty Media Group

Realty Media Group is an Australian PropTech and portal operator that is one of a growing number of companies looking to use AI to enhance its users' search for a new home.

We caught up with CEO Troy Rushton to find out more about Realty Media Group and how the company intends to stand out in a competitive Australian market...

What is the problem that Realty solves?

Better use of time for agents and consumers.

For consumers, traditional location-based property search is time-consuming and inefficient. Consumers need to find suitable properties faster—properties that have been filtered based on their specific criteria, location, travel time lifestyle and family preferences.

Real estate agents are time-poor and face challenges in effectively and efficiently promoting their listings. They often lack the required skills and need to outsource or spend a significant amount of time on advertising and marketing themselves. This is time which could otherwise be used for more critical and productive tasks like prospecting, listing and negotiating.   

By addressing these challenges, Realty Media Group's AgentsAds.io platform aims to empower real estate agencies to make better use of their resources and time, allowing them to focus more on their core income-generating activities while still maintaining a strong online presence and effective advertising. Our property portal, Realty.com.au, improves the property search experience for consumers presenting them with properties better suited to their needs.

What is Realty’s USP and what was the inspiration behind the idea?

Our USP is Automation, powered by AI in two core areas.

The AI portal, realty.com.au, employs artificial intelligence to improve the search experience, making it more intuitive, personalised, and efficient for users. RMG uses advanced algorithms to analyse user preferences, providing more accurate and relevant property recommendations. This can streamline the property discovery process.

For agents, our AgentsAds platform offers tools and features that help agents design and deploy more successful advertising campaigns and optimise their marketing efforts. AgentsAds also expands the reach of advertising efforts, exposing agency listings to a broader audience across web, search and social. This increased visibility can lead to more inquiries and a higher likelihood of successful property transactions.

This time is given back to agents through automation and the use of AI and can be redirected towards core activities such as property transactions, client interactions, and negotiations.  

Changing established user habits is hard. How do you approach the issue of shifting how users search for homes?

Through organic reach and frequency distribution whilst on social media. We have a bottom-up approach, where users will discover us organically through their social timeline based on a specific property of interest that will typically meet their geographic interests. 

Through opt-in engagement on a single property, the user can then experience “discovery search” for the first time and with a continual re-targeting based on similar geographic properties, we will learn about their lifestyle preferences. 

Over time, through passive or active engagement, we will deliver properties that meet their interests, saving them time and we expect to develop habitual engagement. 

How does Realty generate its revenue?

Realty has 6 streams of revenue across a combination of subscription & transactional services. We offer various solutions to both Agencies and Agents with free listings distribution to social media and upgrade options, social boosts and a profile & prospect generation platform on a monthly subscription basis.

What is Realty’s biggest challenge?

Inertia. Agents are overwhelmed with PropTech solutions, so gaining mindshare is a challenge for many solution providers.  

What is Realty currently working on?

We are deep into two areas, both focused on AI. 

Firstly, adding the semantic layer to our natural language processing for Discovery Search on realty.com.au and secondly, enhancing our AI-powered automated marketing solution for Agents through our AgentAds.io offering.  

We also continue to focus on attracting more listings to the network to power our distribution search experience.

What is the most common request from clients?

Automation & frictionless integration of services to deliver time-saving solutions. 

Are there any other portals or proptech companies out there that you follow closely or which served as a guide for building Realty?

We have a realistic perspective of where we sit in the market and will actively monitor what the larger portals are offering, not for inspiration, but to ensure our products continue to be innovative and unique. 

What should we be talking about in the portal industry that we don’t talk about enough at the moment?

Data gathering, analysis, availability and use. Data is the oil that helps us understand and better serve the needs of the consumer. The opportunity that AI-powered customization can deliver to the homeseeker journey.

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

We have a firm belief that the market will evolve through the continued application of AI-powered technologies, particularly, frictionless solutions that deliver time savings for all parties in the buying, selling and renting journey. 

Agents will become increasingly more empowered and focused on building their personal brand and the search experience will become more personalized for Homeseekers to find the ideal property faster.