REA Group appoints data officer at PropTrack

REA Group has announced the appointment of Kris Matthews to the role of chief product, data, and insights officer within its residential property data analytics and automated valuations business, PropTrack.

The appointment has followed the rebranding of the valuations business, which was previously known as Hometrack.

Along with the rebranding, the group recently launched a new application programming interface (API) and customisable widgets to provide customers access to property market data and insights.

According to REA Group, Mr Matthews has experience across real estate, banking and financial services technology, and has over 20 years of experience in information technology and property data.

He was previously at CoreLogic for over 22 years, where he held leadership roles, including executive general manager international and new markets, executive general manager industry development, and chief data and operations officer.

Prior to being appointed at PropTrack, Mr Matthews was at Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) since September 2020, where he was the chief data and analytics officer.

The PropTrack business and REA Insights team fall under the group executive leadership of Melina Cruickshank, chief audience and marketing officer.

Commenting on the appointment, REA Group CEO Owen Wilson said: “We are incredibly excited to welcome Kris to the PropTrack business and REA Group. His wealth of experience and expertise in building data businesses will be instrumental in driving our ambitious data strategy forward.

“The appointment of a chief product, data, and insights officer also marks a major milestone for PropTrack as we accelerate our goal to build the market-leading valuations business.”

Mr Matthews also spoke about his appointment, stating: “I am excited to be joining a business with the unique and unrivalled data assets of REA and PropTrack. They present an incredible opportunity to transform the market. I’m looking forward to bringing new product innovations to a market I know well.”

In 2018, REA Group entered into an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of Hometrack Australia for $130 million in a bid to improve its property data analytics capability.

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Malavika Santhebennur is the features editor on the mortgages titles at Momentum Media.

Before joining the team in 2019, Malavika held roles with Money Management and Benchmark Media. She has been writing about financial services for the past six years.