News Corp earlier in the week put in a bold bid for the remaining shares(56%)of realestate.com.au.
The big winners were PBL which sold their 3% share earlier and the other large owners include Sam White, son of real estate identity Ray White, who has 19.5 per cent, and Mr McGrath with 1.9 per cent.
PBL surely must be thinking of their own strategy to compliment other Internet offerings.
So is this good news or bad news?
The Bad News (my opinion)
Well here are some things you will need to get used to if you are an agent.
1.Ever increasing prices
2.Even more levels of membership.
3.Basic membership will become restrictive, encouraging agents to pay higher revenues and upgrade their memberships.
4.Consumers will also have to put up with even more obtrustive advertising, that is if News Limited have a big influence.
Good News
1. Better integration with News Ltd papers
2. Assault on other papers territories in the real estate classifieds market,
3. Simon Baker’s classifieds realestate.com.au newspaper may make a comeback as an insert in News Limited Papers and maybe the death of the www.realestate.com.au newspaper guide predicted by Fairfax (Fin Revue) could come back to bite them in a big way.
4. Current Shareholders will do very well.
5. If possible even greater market share.
Fairfax has been trying hard through their newspapers to bump the price paid by News Ltd, it has worked so far as shares have surged, but this is a game Fairfax can only comment on. News Ltd and realestate.com.au know how this all works and Fairfax simply sits back and takes a pounding, even though they do like to say alot in their papers.
Realestate.com.au is so far in front now, it is almost embarrassing, and it will take some beating in the future as News Ltd knows how to protect its market and grow.
Fairfax can continue the assualt on the Murdoch Family and Liberty Media, however if I had some advice for them it would be to do something about their own portal www.domain.com.au