Today realestate.com.au announced that it had finalised its deal acquiring Propertylook for just a tad over 9 million AUD dollars.
Propertylook is a worthwhile addition to realestate.com.au and it now leaves just them ( realcommercial.com.au) and commercialrealestate.com.au as the only two commercial real estate players in the market. The owner of Commercial Real Estate declined to comment to me when I called him earlier today, but he must surely be in negotiation with either Fairfax or Sensis.
Whilst Propertylook’s figures may be impressive the bulk of their listings come from the franchises that actually owned the site. CB Richard Ellis, Colliers International, Jones Lang La-Salle and Knight Frank. I really do not see how any of their franchisees will benefit but it made sense to sell for that amount of money.
Commercial Real Estate has around 270 agents, made up of 215 full time agents and 60 casual agents (a better variety also) and this must put them in 16 million or so price bracket. Realestate.com.au continue to show complete dominance in this market and News Limited will have to pay over the odds to get the remaining shares of this site.
One interesting note from the realestate.com.au press release is that it said that Propertylook had over 2400 listings from 175 agents across Australia.
My dodgy old calculator tells me that this equates to 13.7 listings per agent! In other words I think many of the 175 agents may be members but do not actually place listings on the site.
When you look at the breakdown of the 2 sites, it really amazes me that realestate.com.au did not try to buy commercialrealestate.com.au. It all goes back to my argument that they just wanted the main four commercial companies.
Head to Head
Listings
Propertylook 2400
Commercialrealestate 35000
Agents on Board (approximates)
Propertylook 175
Commercialrealestate 270
Listings Per Agent
Propertylook 13.7
Commercialrealestate 129.62
In every department Commercialrealestate.com.au whips Propertylook.com.au (except for maybe visitor numbers)