Property Is Changing: Why Landlords Shouldn't Be Afraid to Try Something New
Property has always been an interesting industry when it comes to technology.
We embrace some changes quickly.
Others are met with:
"I've never heard of them."
"What's the catch?"
"It can't be free."
Or perhaps the most damaging:
"I'll wait until everyone else is using it."
Some of that scepticism is healthy.
Landlords deal with valuable assets, tenants' information, money and legal responsibilities. Nobody should hand over data, money or control to an unknown business without doing some checks.
But there's another side to it.
New doesn't automatically mean risky.
And established doesn't automatically mean best.
A new AI property portal launching this week provides an interesting example.
A new challenger has entered the property portal market
MyPorta has launched as an AI-powered property portal with a very different proposition from the traditional portal model.
The company says users can currently discover 860,242 available UK properties through its platform, compared with 678,002 in its comparison with Rightmove — around 182,000 more.
There is an important qualification here.
Those are MyPorta's figures and methodology, not an independently verified conclusion that MyPorta has "beaten" Rightmove.
MyPorta acknowledges that Rightmove has a larger overall searchable inventory when additional property statuses are included. Its comparison specifically concerns properties it defines as currently available.
That's exactly the sort of distinction we should look for when evaluating something new.
Interesting claim?
Absolutely.
Reason to immediately abandon everything you've used before?
No.
Reason to investigate? Definitely.
What's actually different?
The clever part isn't simply the number of properties.
It's how MyPorta is approaching the problem.
Rather than depending exclusively on agents paying to list properties or sending a portal feed, its crawler indexes property listings published on agents' public websites.
The property remains attributed to the agent and the user can be directed back to the original agency website. MyPorta says its crawler respects robots.txt, only accesses public pages and allows agencies to block it or request removal.
Agents can also provide listings directly through uploads or feeds.
And currently, MyPorta says agents aren't charged to list.
That's disruptive because it asks a simple question:
Does the established way of doing something have to remain the only way of doing it?
AI could also change how we search for property
There's another interesting part.
Most of us have become accustomed to searching for property using filters.
Location.
Price.
Bedrooms.
Property type.
Then scroll.
And scroll.
And scroll.
MyPorta is experimenting with something more conversational.
Instead of simply ticking boxes, a user could describe the property they're looking for and include things that actually matter to them — such as journey times, schools, transport or outdoor space.
The platform then ranks properties against those requirements and produces a personalised compatibility score.
MyPorta says agents cannot pay to improve that compatibility score.
That's an interesting attempt to solve a genuine consumer problem.
But MyPorta isn't alone in exploring AI. Rightmove itself is already testing AI-powered conversational search and "Ask Rightmove", allowing some users to search using natural language alongside its traditional search experience.
So perhaps the real story isn't:
MyPorta vs Rightmove.
It's:
Property search itself is beginning to change.
Why are we so suspicious of new property technology?
I've worked around property long enough to understand the scepticism.
Property attracts a lot of promises.
New investment schemes.
Lead-generation companies.
Training programmes.
Technology platforms.
"Revolutionary" business models.
And plenty of things that disappear six months later.
So asking questions is sensible.
But scepticism becomes a disadvantage when it turns into:
"I haven't heard of it, therefore I don't trust it."
Every established company was once unknown.
Every piece of technology we now take for granted was once something people questioned.
The challenge is learning to separate new from untrustworthy.
They aren't the same thing.
A simple test before trying new property technology
You don't need to become an early adopter of everything.
You just need a sensible process for investigating new tools.
Before giving a new platform your money, property information or personal data, ask:
- Who is behind it? Can you identify the company and people?
- Can you verify the business? Look at Companies House, contact information and its wider presence.
- What data does it need? Don't give a service access it doesn't reasonably require.
- How does it make money? Free can be perfectly legitimate, but you should understand the business model where possible.
- What problem does it actually solve? Ignore the AI label and ask whether it saves time, money or effort.
- Can you test it without committing? Start small.
- Can you export or retain your information? Avoid unnecessary lock-in.
- What do independent users say? Look beyond testimonials on the company's own website.
- Does it make unrealistic promises? Innovation can improve a process. It rarely makes risk disappear.
That is very different from blindly trusting a startup.
It's informed curiosity.
Landlords should pay particular attention to disruption
Why does any of this matter to landlords?
Because landlords are facing their own technology shift.
For years, self-management could involve:
A spreadsheet.
A calendar.
A filing cabinet.
An email inbox.
A phone full of property photos.
And quite a lot of memory.
It can work.
But "it works" and "it's the best way of doing it" aren't necessarily the same thing.
New technology gives landlords options that didn't previously exist.
Compliance reminders can be automated.
Property documents can be organised digitally.
Repair histories can be recorded.
Property information can be accessed from a phone.
Administrative tasks can increasingly be automated.
AI will almost certainly add another layer.
None of that means landlords should download every new app that appears.
It means they shouldn't automatically dismiss one because it hasn't existed for 20 years.
The established companies aren't standing still either
There's another reason landlords should pay attention.
Innovation from challengers often forces established businesses to innovate too.
Rightmove isn't ignoring AI.
Its 2026 half-year results describe investment in conversational search, AI-powered tools and what it calls a future "agentic-powered property marketplace."
That's competition doing what competition should do.
One company tries something different.
Another responds.
Consumers get more choice.
Some ideas fail.
Others become normal.
And occasionally, an outsider changes an entire industry.
That's how I think about 360Rent
It's also part of the thinking behind 360Rent.
We're not claiming landlords have been managing property incorrectly for decades.
And we're not suggesting technology knows more about your property than you do.
We're asking a much simpler question:
Can some of the frustrating parts of being a landlord be done better?
Can certificates be easier to track?
Can property records be easier to find?
Can repairs be easier to follow?
Can reminders happen automatically instead of living in someone's head?
Can a landlord remain independent without doing everything manually?
If the answer is yes, it's worth exploring.
Be sceptical. But stay curious.
Perhaps that's the balance property needs.
Don't trust something simply because it's new.
But don't distrust it for the same reason.
Check it.
Question it.
Understand it.
Test it.
Then decide whether it makes your life better.
There are scams in property.
There are bad ideas.
There are overhyped products.
But there are also entrepreneurs, developers and property professionals genuinely trying to solve problems that the established market hasn't solved particularly well.
The brave don't need to be reckless.
They just need to remain curious.
Because the next tool that saves you hours of administration, finds your next property or changes how you manage your portfolio probably won't look established when you first discover it.
At some point, every established idea was the new one.
Stay Organised. Stay Compliant. Stay In Control.
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- First-Time Landlord Guide UK (2026)