Digital discovery reshapes estate agency marketing

AI-assisted listings and search have gone mainstream as buyers change how they hunt for properties, according to Homesearch. It says that its AI listing optimisation platform Hailo is processing 250,000 estate agent listings a day and has generated more than 7 million Google search impressions and 197,000 consumer clicks since late January. 3,555 estate agency branches are now connected to the system.

The company said the figures mark a significant shift by buyers away from property portals such as Rightmove and Zoopla, which were previously the main search destinations for buyers seeking property investment opportunities.

The shift to conversational questions

Instead, Homesearch says that consumers are asking AI tools specific, detailed, conversational questions about what is available, where, at what price, with what features and near what amenities rather than restricting their search query to ‘houses for sale in Bristol’. And it means that listings that are structured and readable by AI systems appear in responses for buyers.

Homesearch tracks visibility across traditional search and AI discovery tools through a rolling weekly benchmark. The most recent results show significant movement, the company says.

On Google, query visibility has risen from 68.3% to 76.7%. District visibility has increased from 83.3% to 96.7%, close to full coverage of tracked UK districts.

On Bing, it says the growth is more dramatic. Query visibility has jumped from 1.7% to 20.0%. District visibility has risen from 3.3% to 33.3%.

Beyond traditional search, Homesearch-listed properties have begun appearing across the major AI discovery platforms, including Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI and ChatGPT, the company says.

“We have gone from a standing start to processing 250,000 listings per day,” says Giles Ellwood, CEO of Homesearch. “This is no longer a theory about AI property discovery. It is becoming a measurable channel.”