REA Group
Understanding Home Sellers to Reshape the Property Experience
REA Group needed a deeper understanding of home sellers in Australia — who they are, what drives their decisions, and where the experience breaks down. We partnered with their team to conduct in-depth research that uncovered seller motivations, pain points, and unmet needs across the property journey. The result was a set of behavioural archetypes and actionable insights that gave REA a clear picture of how to better serve sellers in a rapidly shifting market.
Outcomes
- First-hand, anecdotal insights into home sellers' behaviour, experiences, and needs across the selling journey
- Current findings on consumer attitudes in a property market significantly impacted by COVID-19 and climate change
- Four research-derived behavioural archetypes describing key motivators, value drivers, and opportunities for each home-seller type
- Actionable customer insights to inform product and service design that improves the experience for people selling a home
Getting closer to home sellers
The property landscape was shifting fast during the COVID-19 pandemic, and REA Group wanted to understand more about the people at the centre of it — home sellers across Australia. They had existing data on how sellers interacted with their products and services, but lacked first-hand insight into seller motivations, lived experiences, and decision-making. We set out to uncover who these sellers really are, what they go through when selling a home, and what would genuinely help them along the way.
Behavioural archetypes: We created a set of behavioural archetypes based on different types of data to understand how to improve REA’s services and products.
Deep conversations with 20 home sellers
We conducted 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with people who were either in the process of selling a home or had recently sold and purchased. We spoke with an even mix of experienced sellers and first-timers to capture a fuller picture of the journey. Our conversations focused on the factors that build or stall momentum during the selling and buying process — and we explored what sellers knew and felt about REA and competitor products and services.
Mapping the consumer’s journey through buying and selling their property allowed our team to illustrate the universal experience.
Mapping journeys and uncovering pain points
From these conversations, we built detailed journey maps that illustrated the real, everyday experiences of people selling homes in Australia — and we identified their key pain points and needs. We developed a clear picture of how sellers view the relationship between buying and selling, and what drives the pace of different stages in the process.
We found that the biggest differences between first-time and experienced sellers came down to how much knowledge they brought into the process. We also discovered that COVID-19 and climate change are both having significant impacts on consumer decision-making — and that there were clear opportunities for REA to improve the seller experience through more context-specific advice.
Our research identified the complexities of the consumer journey and revealed key insights.
Building behavioural archetypes — Neil, Edward, Rachel and Nicole
We turned our research into four realistic home-seller archetypes, each with names, personality traits, and distinct behavioural drivers. We identified the key factors that shape differences in seller behaviour, then grouped common patterns to create meaningful profiles. Each archetype captured specific insights, opportunities, and pain points drawn directly from our interviews — with evidence-based implications for REA to act on.
Together, we mapped out which sellers want detailed market data to take confident control of their journey, and which ones need more hands-on guidance — including what kind and when it matters most. With a clearer understanding of these diverse needs, we identified new opportunities for REA to strengthen its offering for each of the four home-seller types in the Australian market.
The archetypes builds on REA’s understanding of who their customers are, their needs and pain points. We identified four archetypes with different experiences in their property journey.
