Realestate.com.au has partnered with Sky Italia – the Italian Pay TV Operator (owned by News Ltd) to purchase 90% of Casa.it for $15.9 million.
The deal again places realestate.com.au as the most aggressive real estate portal in Australia and adds another site to their growing stable of International websites.
One of the representatives of realestate.com.au forwarded me the press release with the following text.
“We believe that the more international markets we enter, the more successful we will be with Australian agents and consumers. That’s because we can share (and reduce) costs across all the different countries, share knowledge, and drive traffic among the countries (all of whom have significant numbers of international home buyers).”
Doesn’t this make you just want to give a big group hug to all the wonderful people at realestate.com.au for their undying commitment to real estate agents.
To be honest there is a deal of truth with this, however getting more people and more buyers to Australian agents sounds like a good idea – but there is always that historical sneaking suspicion that prices will rise even further with an increase in popularity.
Any agency for the SUPER PLATINUM INTERNATIONAL MARKETING PACKAGE?
It only costs an extra $5000.00 per annum to have your agencies listings appear on International websites! (Logos will cost an extra $2,500 to appear next to search results…………ok, I do get carried away!
I do really think that it is great to get Australian companies (they are still classified as Australian in my eyes) out there buying into International markets and anything that increases the awareness of the Australian property market is a good thing, so again well done to the team at real estate. Will be interesting to see if the site gets the realestate.com.au revamp, as it is pretty boring to look at.
You can download the press release in its entirety here. (PDF file 39kb)
6 Comments
A. S.
Is it me or is realestate.com.au leaving domain.com.au in its dust? I manage an agency in Queensland and until recently I was on both domain and realestate.com.au. However I was getting 10 x the amount of enquiries on realestate.com.au as I was on Domain, maybe it was just my area. But leaving domain has allowed me to put more into my own website advertising….
Peter
Hi A. S.
It does amaze me that hardly anyone leaves their full names (or real ones sometimes) here, I can assure you no one bites!
Look, realestate and domain have strengths in certain markets. Before getting carried away by visitor numbers make sure you do your homework (as you have done) 50 gazillion visitors a month with no leads is useless.
I am happy to hear someone actually investing more in their own website, as this is YOURS, you OWN IT, and it is where you can actually show the difference between you and your competitors.
Simon Baker
Peter – you are getting carried away.
We do not charge extra for advertising on the other sites as that is not how the model works. Let me explain.
If i am in the UK and using propertyfinder.com and i want to search properties outside of the UK, I go to the international section. If i select Australia, NZ or Italy, i will be automatically taken to the realestate.com.au, allrealestate.co.nz or the casa.it sites.
If i selected another country, i will be taken to the international search section. This section will be consistent across all 4 sites. To advertise in the international search section, (all countries except Aust / NZ / UK / Italy), you need to have a property in another country and to buy an international subscription or it can be purchased per property. E.g. an agent with a property in Fiji for example can advertise here.
As you can see, all current agents are now exposing their listings to an even broad market at no extra cost! Advertise on realestate.com.au and get casa.it, propertyfinder.com and allrealestate.co.nz for free! That is a total of 5.5 million UV’s.
Regards
Simon Baker
Peter Ricci
Hi Simon, yes I was getting carried away, but this is the very point I was trying to make!
I understand 100% how it works and I commend your companies growth and I understand the benefits to agencies across the world.
This point of view is as extreme as say …………….. paying thousands of dollars extra for having a 10 kilobyte logo next to a listing….
My job here is to inform agents about what is happening within the industry and to give my points of view – sometimes they are extreme and sometimes (often) they are wrong – however thinking is a good thing!
Thanks for your comments again!
Sam
As a past critic I now must take my hat off to Simon Baker.
He has taken full advantage of the unique sutuation here in Australia whereas he seems to be the only one capable of running a real estate web business properly.
The REA share price shows that there is confidence that this will continue.
The comments of A.S. above tell the story I’m afraid, this is bad for real estate agents in Australia as good competition is vital to a healthy market.
Tom S
Simon,
Congratulations on this deal.
I look forward to your next overseas venture.