Inside Grant Turner’s winning idea set to reshape commercial property

Selling a commercial property can feel like a rollercoaster for Grant Turner and other real estate agents, starting with the highs of securing a listing followed by the lows of building an information memorandum, or IM.

An IM – which is a detailed commercial property info pack for investors and tenants that spans dozens of pages – can become a bottleneck that slows down campaigns and starves investors of timely, trustworthy facts.

“We can get really excited when we list a property, but then it’s like a rollercoaster because you’ve got to put together this information memorandum,” said Mr Turner, who is the head of sales and leasing at Ray White Commercial CSR.

“If you’re a massive company, you might have a whole marketing department that does that, but I like to do them myself as an agent, which can cost me 20–30 hours a week to put together.”

This everyday industry challenge was the inspiration behind the project – one of 10 innovative team ideas in the 2026 Hackdays event which brought together REA Group’s technology experts and customers to solve real business and industry challenges.

Mr Turner led a team of REA tech, product and design experts to build a prototype that generated clear, accurate IMs in minutes rather than days. Leveraging capabilities from across the REA Group ecosystem, including market comparables from PropTrack and Arealytics, iGuide immersive visualisation and Realtair’s digital proposal tool, the project went on to win Hackdays 2026.

“To think we started at the beginning of the week with just an idea, and we finished the week with a win – how awesome,” Mr Turner said.

What they built

The team focused on ways to enable faster work without compromising on the quality of information, while giving owners, investors and tenants greater confidence in the opportunities being brought to market.

The prototype assembles trusted, property‑specific data into a structured document that standardises essentials yet leaves room for local insight, allowing agents to refocus on conversations that move deals rather than documents that slow them.

“It will be a really powerful tool to help win business because I’ll be able to show future sellers and future landlords: this is what we put together to represent your property really well,” he said.

For investors, the promise is a simpler, faster path to confidence, especially for those stepping into commercial markets and seeking clarity on yields, rents, demand and local context without trawling multiple sources.

Mr Turner and his team brainstorming during the early stages of Hackdays. Picture: Supplied

“There’s an incredible level of benefit for buyers because a lot of agents aren’t doing this properly or well, or they’re doing the bare basics,” he said.

“By tapping into a lot of the data that REA has across the various parts of the business, we can pull that information together to give buyers confidence to take the next step and make a decision to buy or lease.”

How they built it

The Hackdays project demanded quick thinking and sharp prioritisation, as the team needed to build a prototype from scratch during the four-day innovation event held in September.

Mr Turner said they had to establish a minimum viable product (MVP) – which is the simplest version of a new product – quickly so they could sprint and have something ready to show at the end of the four days.

“An IM can be quite complex and can have a lot of different sections,” he said.

“Deciding what we were going to focus on for this MVP was probably the hardest part. It involved a lot of group discussion and weighing that up against what the team could realistically deliver in the short amount of time we had.”

Getting involved

For Mr Turner, the Hackdays experience paired customer insight with REA’s engineering and data capabilities to test and prove a solution grounded in real‑world workflows and measurable benefits.

“This program has been absolutely awesome,” he said.

“It’s fantastic to see REA carve out time in the business week to bring all these different specialties into one team and look at ideas that will hopefully shape the future.

Mr Turner and team presenting their winning project to the judges. Picture: Supplied

“I genuinely believe what we’re building is something that can become a necessity and a real disruptor in the commercial world going forward, and I don’t think anyone is doing it the way we’re putting it together today.”

Mr Turner encouraged other property professionals with their own innovative ideas to get involved in future Hackdays.

“Rather than complain about an idea, think of a solution,” he said.

“Put that solution into a Hackdays submission, and if you get the opportunity to go down, go down and play it out. You’ll make great new friends and see what’s really possible.”

To help turn customer ideas into action, REA Hackdays provided AI Acceleration grants to the winners and all participants.

The team received a $30,000 grant, with $20,000 awarded to second place and $10,000 to third place.

Each remaining participant received a $5,000 grant to further support their innovation and growth in the era of AI.

REA Hackdays has provided a platform for turning ambitious ideas into practical solutions over the past 16 years.

This year, REA customers brought their ideas to Hackdays, partnering with REA teams to examine real business challenges and develop solutions.