Realestate.com.au and News International (News Ltd to us) have jointly acquired UK Property Portal Propertyfinder.com.I had a good look through the site and although it has won some recent awards, it really does need the a Realestate.com.au re design. It has some excellent features but it is pain in the backside to use. I cannot stand sites where you have to jump through hoops to learn how it works and this is no exception. I think Realestate.com.au will probably take their time with the overhaul and introduce new features slowly.
However the important thing is the strategy News Ltd are employing. News International is the UK arm of News Ltd and they have a number of papers in this country including The Times and The Sun. I think this will be the start of some pretty big deals being made and it makes sense to have consistency across all of the countries portals.
News Ltd will shortly own all of realestate.com.au and I am sure they will bring all of their countries real estate sites under one banner and purchase portals in areas that they do not have any real strength. News Ltd have made it clear they will not surrender territory online to anyone and they have the power to make this work.
I think they will basically try to cover the globe in online areas such as Property, Cars, Jobs and other classifieds.
Starting to get a global reach which will make it easier to jump into new markets/countries as their power increases. It could also be great for agents as the reach of their advertisements on any of the portals will increase significantly. It will also increase advertising revenues (non agent) significantly and attract international advertisers.
Here I go on about pricing again. But I just know the more powerful this company gets, the higher the prices go. It is a bit unsettling that no one seems to be challenging them in this area like they have competition in jobs and cars.