Realestate.com.au has rolled out what they call REA Labs where they are testing their new products prior to full launch.
The press release I received started like this “Global innovator in online real estate, the REA Group”, well it made me laugh a little bit, …….global innovator? I thought you had to do many unique things to be a global innovator?
Anyway, this site is pretty much a rip off of the Google Labs project which has been running for over ten years and there is nothing really unique on the site, but I do think it is a good idea and I am sure some pretty nifty things will come out of it.
I do like the REA Toolbar, but with so many toolbars out there it may be pushing manure up hill to get any real penetration. However this is one thing I will call an innovation as I have not seen anyone else do this to date.
The RSS feeds are also going to be a big thing in the future and as this technology advances and fins its way into our set top boxes we could be in for some real advances.
I will keep you posted on any new projects if I find them interesting!
9 Comments
Dave Platter
(I work for realestate.com.au Ltd)
Peter, the RSS feeds are my favorite. I live in Manly and track the properties that come onto the market obsessively. A little to obsessively, perhaps.
Robert Simeon
I think that Google have been very generous to all property portals all over the world. We even use Google Maps on our site – they are a shaker and mover in the property industry.
The unanswered question is will they start a property portal in Australia ? I put this question to a Google executive who recently inspected a home. His response to my question was a beaming 😉
David Slattery
Robert do you mean Google Base?
I hear it has failed in the US as a source of real estate listings.
I have been dissapointed with the Google Maps on both realestate.com.au and domain – slow to load and quite often not up to date.
I prefer the Microsoft version on Spyke.
Simon Baker
Peter
Thanks for writing up the launch of our REA Labs. Yes it is based on the great Google initiative.
The reason we have done this is to provide a creative outlet for our development team. They have lots of great ideas that sometimes may not see the light of day so we wanted to create a mechanism by which they can be heard.
We also encourage our development team and product managers to take a day every fortnight to work on the fun project of their choice.
We hope that lots of fun new innovative products will be developed by this initiative.
Peter Ricci
Simon, thank you for that. I think it is a great idea. It will be interesting to see and comment on some of these innovations when I see them. I think it is great to let them explore their more creative sides, an important tool for larger companies and one that will reap rewards.!
Robert Simeon
David,
What we are finding is that prospective purchasers are now going to http://www.google.com.au and typing in the address of the property of interest. This then reveals a history of the street, council DA/BA information, together with a history of sales and other relevant information pertaining to that street.
I think that Google Mapping still remains ahead of its time as it does take time to download – and sales data still remains outdated and not consistent.
I have had recent conversations with Australian Property Monitors, who are presently working on providing the market with exchange data releases. If they can pull this off this will be a first in NSW real estate history.
NSW, is that far behind compared to other states that it is an embarrasement to our industry. The information is there, just that agents refuse to share it – a classic case of dumber and dumber.
The irony being that if agents participated we would have last months sales data available within days of a month end. As against data that is generally six months old.
Another example that agents are their own worst enemy !!
sweller
History revisited.
Australia’s #1 Property Experience has LABS ones again!
realestate.com.au/labs