HouGarden X OneRoof

HouGarden played a foundational role in the creation and technical development of OneRoof, working in close partnership with NZME. Drawing on HouGarden’s core technology stack and category expertise, the joint venture moved from concept to scale with unusual speed—establishing OneRoof as New Zealand’s second-largest real estate portal and a credible challenger in a mature market.

From the outset, HouGarden contributed the platform’s backbone: high-performance listing ingestion and normalisation, search and recommendation services, mobile-first front-end frameworks, and the analytics layer needed for audience growth and monetisation. Equally important was market knowledge—what buyers and sellers actually value, how agents manage inventory, and where data frictions slow conversion. This blend of engineering rigor and go-to-market insight allowed OneRoof to launch with reliable coverage, intuitive discovery, and clear pathways from browsing to enquiry.

As audience traction accelerated, the teams focused on scalable operations: quality controls for data feeds, SEO architectures tuned to suburb and project discovery, and reporting that gave agents and advertisers a transparent view of performance. The result was a platform that could grow sustainably—adding features, partners, and inventory without sacrificing speed, relevance, or accuracy.

The success of OneRoof underscores HouGarden’s strengths beyond marketing: product architecture, data systems, and platform strategy that can take a category entrant from zero to national footprint. It also highlights the value of pairing a robust media network like NZME with a specialised technology partner. Together, they built a portal that serves consumers, agents, and advertisers—and proved that with the right stack and strategy, market leadership can be challenged and reshaped.