Episode 6 - Dashdot Collapse, REA’s Data Deals and the Fight for Industry Control

In Episode 6 of Before the Weekend, Peter Schravemade and Kasey McDonald unpack a huge week in Australian real estate, beginning with the collapse of buyer’s agency Dashdot and the serious questions it raises about upfront fees, consumer protection, trust and the property investment advice sector. The episode also covers Queensland’s worsening rental supply crisis, with new analysis suggesting the state has lost nearly 13,000 rental bedrooms over three years, plus a Gold Coast prestige sales feud that asks who really gets to define market value: the selling agent, the buyer’s agent, the auction floor or the final buyer. Peter and Kasey also discuss another trust account misuse case in Victoria, a Sunshine Coast unfair dismissal claim dismissed after just one week of employment, and Ben Ikin’s move into proptech as CEO of SearchX. The feature conversation then turns to REA Group’s growing network of strategic partnerships, with Adrian Knowles, CEO of Harcourts Australia, joining to explain the Harcourts and REA Group deal, and Sadhana Smiles from REIP responding to questions about data sovereignty, REIP Nexus, proptech partnerships and whether the industry is moving closer to or further away from control of its own data. It is a long episode, but an important one, covering trust, data, portals, technology, agency risk and the future direction of the real estate industry.