For years, property technology promised to make buying and selling a home faster, cheaper and more transparent. The software largely delivered. The business models did not.

Most proptech startups chose to get paid by agents and brokerages, not by the people actually moving their life savings into a house. That single decision shaped the entire ecosystem. Tools were built to help professionals win more listings, capture more leads and close more deals, while the buyer and seller remained on the sidelines of the product roadmap.

The result was an arms race of lead-generation platforms, customer relationship managers and marketing suites. These products made intermediaries more efficient and more visible, but they did little to rebalance power in the transaction. When a new feature was scoped, the key question was rarely whether it would lower costs or increase clarity for the consumer. It was whether it would help an agent convert another prospect.

Consumers felt the consequences. Fees stayed high, pricing remained opaque and the process was still intimidating. Technology reduced friction for professionals, but the savings rarely flowed through to the people paying for the house.

Other industries show what a different incentive structure can do. Online travel platforms shifted pricing power from travel agents to travelers by exposing real-time fares and letting people book directly. In finance, digital-first banks and trading apps put tools in the hands of end users and stripped out layers of middlemen.

Real estate flirted with this kind of change. Listing portals made inventory visible, but when it came time to write an offer or negotiate terms, most consumers were funneled straight back into the traditional agent-centric model. Information became easier to access, yet the structure of the deal barely moved.

Now a new wave of companies is testing whether a consumer-first model can finally take hold. They are experimenting with flat fees instead of percentage commissions, direct access to listing data and transaction platforms that let buyers and sellers control more of the workflow themselves. Revenue is tied to user satisfaction and successful outcomes, not to preserving an existing hierarchy.

If this approach scales, the winners in proptech will not be those with the slickest dashboards for brokerages. They will be the firms that prove you can build a durable business by putting the homebuyer and seller at the center of the product, the pricing and the power structure.