Realestate.com.au have today launched a portal www.property.com.au to openly test new technologies. This new site is property data only (yes minus advertising) and has all of the property data that realestate.com.au has, although I have been warned that it is a beta site so performance may vary.
Other portals will obviously find this of supreme interest and may fast-track similar developments that they find useful. The site has been quoted as being a blocker for MyHome, but really I don’t see this being the case.
One may argue that it may be better to go to this site than realestate.com.au if there is no advertising on the site and from the screen shots I have seen there isn’t.
Look for this site to be live around midday today….I will then have more time to asses the site and give my opinion…
68 Comments
Paul Krayven
Is it just me or does the site redirect you to realestate.com.au?
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
Paul, it’s not just you, it goes live later this afternoon.
Peter, thanks for sharing this news with the business2.com.au community. If anyone has any questions about the site as it goes live, I’d be happy to answer them in this forum.
All best.
dave
Peter
Paul as I mentioned it should be live around lunchtime…
Peter
Surely Dave, are you Borat?
Peter
Sorry it was later today!
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Lt/the REA Group)
I am thanking you for your complimentary statement. In my cultural learnings I hear many things about famous Peter Ricci. I am many happy to meet you. Have you got a sister who would be my flat mate?
Seriously, Peter. I’m not; that ad was created by some kids. As you can tell from the above, I’m not even funny. (Looks are another thing.)
dave
Paul Krayven
Apologies I was too eager to jump right in 🙂
Peter Ricci
Simon Baker says…….(Adelaide Advertiser) “We can’t take such an experimental approach on http://www.realestate.com.au because there are more than 3.7 million visitors each month who love that site how it is now,” he said.
I was wondering David – how many of those 3.7 million were polled as to their love of the site? My guess would be every single one would be annoyed at the over advertising on the site…..So maybe ‘like’, ‘enjoy’ or ‘favour’ would be better words to describe their feelings……
Sam
Gosh it’s amazing how they fit the words “3.7 million visitors? into every statement.
It’s a nice day Simon , “yes it is and our 3.7 million visitors would like it I’m sure”
Thats a nice tie you’re wearing today, “yes speaking of our 3.7 million visitors I’m sure they would like it too”
etc etc
Paul Krayven
I love it. Very clean, almost exactly like realmaps though. Speed with realestate.com.au hosted sites is still an issue for me though don’t know why, domain runs like lightning for me. Must be those 3.7mil visitors 🙂
Sam
Still redirecting to REA for me, did I mention 3.7 million visitors ?
Paul Krayven
.sam try http://203.17.253.62 sounds like you might have a caching issue.
Paul Krayven
or this link http://www.property.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=bhp&t=res&cu=fn-pca
Sam
Thanks Paul, I thought this looks good until I did a search. It’s EXACTLY like real maps…..a direct rip off. Not keen on it really.
Sam
For got to mention 3.7 million visitors, which is almost 4 which is almost 5 which is half of 10 million visitors !!!!!!!!!!!
Sam
Geez it’s just sinking in, how unbelievably pathetic is it that REA have to copy a startup like realmaps. Don’t they have any pride ? They are the parasites of the industry …really they are.
Paul Krayven
Ok, I have had really good look through it now and it has many elements I like and some I dislike, unlike realmaps its good to test this as data is already available.
A couple of beefs I have with mapping sites like this is the fact that they look terrible at low resolution. My personal opinion is that a mapping site should extend full screen with cs2 overlays. For navigation. I have a great idea about to create the UI for a mapping site and hope to get it out for my company before someone else beats me too it:)
I think the spyke site was heading the the right direction but the layout still isn’t correct. The default google speech bubbles need changing. It’s pretty easy to do and looks out of place on what is a very clean design. I also realise this is only a beta ‘test’ site so I don’t mean to be overly critical.
All in all though a great effort, I like it. Domain is rebranding ‘yet again’ shortly so I’m interested to see what their new site may be like and I can’t wait to test out property.com.au on my home screen 1920 x 1200 resolution where these sites really shine.
Regards
Paul D
It just seems like most other websites to me. (I am an advertiser on realestate.com.au) It does not show the floor plans that are on REA and the photos are small. Fairly easy to use, nothing special. Who cares about the advertising, I never look at it anyway. Selection of options a bit cumbersome, but after you do it once or twice, it’s ok. A bit Ho Hum really.
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
Paul, I’m glad you like property.com.au.
Oh, and Sam, did I mention we get 3.7 million unique browsers per month? 😉
dave
Peter
Paul: Thanks for commenting and welcome to our website. I hope to see you and your colleagues here again soon, we would love to hear more of your thoughts on a variety of subjects….
Peter
Paul K
I am looking at it on my 2560 x 1600 Dell 30 Inch beast and it looks great, although a little sparse!
Peter
Sam did I mention I have a 2560 x 1600 Monitor? Sorry Paul K, was not trying to steal your thunder…
Sam
Don’t make fun of 3.7 million unique browsers Peter, if you say it fast it sounds like 37 million – 37 million visitors wow, no doubt REA will be working on a way to claim more visitors than Australia has people, where there’s a will there’s a way.
Sam
Ok I just heard REA has done a deal with the PM of India to make REA the homepage on every computer sold over there giving REA an extra 1 Billion unique browsers a month because the laws will also be altered making it unlawful not to log on at least once a month.
Now on 3 rupees per month not a lot of these visitors will be buying real estate anywhere but it’s the NUMBERS that matter.
Apologies in advance for the millions of enquiries that will come through in that dialect. Roughly translated they will be saying “how do i change the #$#$% homepage” HA HA HA we won’t be giving that secret away will we ? no more than NineMSN does.
Simon Baker
Sam
You seem to love to claim that we are “fudging” the numbers (previous post by you). Apart from being slanderous, it is also false – they are real.
If you believe your claim, then your beef is not with realestate.com.au but with Nielsen//NetRatings which is listed on the NASDAQ and 62% owned by the Nielsen Company.
For those that are unaware, a piece of code is inserted into every page on the site and each time a page is loaded, the code is called, a message is fired off to NetRatings servers and they track the viewing of the page, the ip address of the viewer, the browers type and a stack of other information.
This form of tracking is the default industry standard in Australia and used by News Digital, Fairfax Digital (domain and all other sites), ninemsn, seek, and hundreds of other sites.
Therefore by claiming that we fudge our numbers, you are really claiming that Nielsen is fudging the numbers as well as all publishers who use NetRatings are fudging their numbers. That’s a big claim!
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Sam
Sorry if you’re feeling guilty enough about this to react in such a manner to what most other people would see as humour, if you see truth in it then I understand your discomfort.
Peter Ricci
Hi Simon
I think Sam is winding you up a little. I think it has more to do with REA continually quoting these figures when as a whole the industry has stood relatively still for a while now….
As I have said before – bigger visitor numbers do not add up to more sales….and unless there are more sales/tenanted listings then really they are just numbers…
I understand 100% why you quote these figures – but I want to see more movement in the interests of the people that give you these numbers – the agents themselves…..for without the majority of listings in Australia you would be just like – homehound….
Oh and please get rid of pop overs once and for all……………I leave my pop ups on for a number of sites so I can see what they are up to with advertisers….
Ooops or have you already – no pop ups today???
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
Sam, it might be time to lay of the liquor for today…
😉
dave
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
Just want to add that, as this is a test site, there only has to be one good thing on it and it
Sam
“Sam, it might be time to lay of the liquor for today
Simon Baker
Peter
I’ve taken my medication and have calmed down 😉
I dont believe that the industry has been standing still. What i think has been happening is that there is a continual movement to online as the search mechanism of choice.
Surely the best measure of success for any website is the ability to drive a high volume of leads to agents. So, for example, in January 2006 realestate.com.au provided advertisers (agents) with 410,000 email leads. In January 2007, realestate.com.au provided agents with 580,000 email leads. This does not take into account the phone calls or OFI walk-ups that were generated as well.
You are right – bigger visitor numbers may or may not necessarily lead to more sales. What larger visitor numbers do is generate more leads for agents. It is up to the agent to convert these leads to sales or listings.
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
It looks like the user feedback feature of property.com.au is already getting a workout. Here’s a snapshot of what some people are already saying (good and bad):
***For price range it would be good to be able to input figures as slider was a bit tricky when trying to get a specific range Perhaps make the map smaller and property photo bigger – property photo is often where you make the first decision to consider property or not All in all a great step forward – well done
***Would be good if the system remembered your refinement options after you have viewed a property, it gets annoying having to keep entering your search filters.
***It would be good if you could pick an image and enlarge it. Other than that this site is fantastic!!
***Really not easy to use… the search does not allow for multiple suburbs, the results are messy, when I use the filters on a property details page and then select a property – after I have viewed the property and go back it doesn’t save my filter options. The navigation on the photo displays are awful, only found them by mistake… but a great effort to update to fresher technologies – keep it up!
***What happened to the floorplans ??
***The new user interface elements are all very promising, but required further refinement and usability testing to not get in the way. Having your refinement preferences reset when returning to a search with the Back button, for example, is completely unacceptable. Also, why limit a search to one suburb at a time? This rarely makes sense in real-world usage.
***Some fantastic new features being worked into the site, love the ability to fine tune the search within the same page.
All best,
dave
Gerard
Howdy,
Used to read this forum quite regularly. This was until some of people (whom I need not mention as they should know who there are) become so frustrating with their childish comments that I couldn’t read it any longer. Again today I am disappointed with the content of the posts.
Could the moderator please display the relevant ‘on topic’ posts onto the site and prevent all the jabs these people seem to make at each other from making it onto the site which only provoke more ‘off-topic’ replies?
NOW…onto the actual topic of this post.
Site looks OK and needs plenty of work. It’s a ‘beta’ which means that it will get more work and WILL improve. If you have any positive suggestions, perhaps post them on the site using the ‘Tell us what you think’ banner that appears on every page.
In regards to the comment about the site being a ‘rip-off’…there is only so much people can do with maps. Just because a site look similar to another, it does not mean they have been copied.
Robert Simeon
I struggle to follow what this exactly tries to achieve as properties are juggled ie, Mosman then refine search maximum price is $1.950 million (which is close to entry point).
8 MOSMAN STREET
MOSMAN
6 Beds, 7 Baths, 0 Cars
3 Photos Map
8 MOSMAN STREET
MOSMAN
6 Beds, 7 Baths, 0 Cars
3 Photos
MOSMAN
6 Beds, 3 Baths, 2 Cars
1 Photos Map
48 PRINCE ALBERT STREET
MOSMAN
$4,200,000
6 Beds, 4 Baths, 2 Cars
13 Photos Map
48 PRINCE ALBERT STREET
MOSMAN
$4,200,000
6 Beds, 4 Baths, 2 Cars
13 Photos 80 WOLSELEY ROAD
MOSMAN
$4,500,000
6 Beds, 3 Baths, 2 Cars
9 Photos Map
80 WOLSELEY ROAD
MOSMAN
$4,500,000
6 Beds, 3 Baths, 2 Cars
9 Photos 3 ELLALONG ROAD
MOSMAN
$1,995,000
5 Beds, 3 Baths, 0 Cars
7 Photos Map
3 ELLALONG ROAD
MOSMAN
$1,995,000
5 Beds, 3 Baths, 0 Cars
7 Photos 11 CONGEWOI ROAD
MOSMAN
5 Beds, 3 Baths, 0 Cars
4 Photos Map
My first thoughts are that this further complicates a search process – it is a long way off from being called user friendly. Just look at the price demographics.
In the present format I doubt consumers will right click and save to favorites.
Paul Krayven
Bah Peter your res is too much 😛 I considered a 30″ screen but found myself dizzy in front of it lol., Seriously it definately is nice looking at these mapping sites on a large widescreen screen and when every one has them I think these sites will push forwards massively. Beats looking at fixed width websites thats for sure and ehm I’m guilty of that 🙂
Paul Krayven
Just as a further comment on property.co.au. I like it at high res better, only that map really needs a % height past what it is currently. It’s too thin. Also it’s nice it remembers my last search on the front page but it should be at least blank when i first enter. I copy a lot of the above comments dave.
Peter, Can we have an edit function so we don’t have to multiple post, I feel like I’m spamming if i come up with some thing else hehe. Love the new site btw.
Paul Krayven
Not to get into an arguement about statistics, but the stats quoted from advertising click through impressions by REA are way off our own google analytics stats (and I mean way off).
I personally believe REA’s stats are accurate, but I take all stats with a grain of salt. If I roughly times the amount of unique vistors we have by 80 odd percent the number of agencies in australia we’d get similar results so I’m ure they are accurate. However stats can get alsorts of people into arguements and they can be manipulated somewhat in truth so I advise anyone to take them as they are…just stats.
Peter
Gerard, good to see you back again. Couple of things….I will not be moderating comments no matter how futile they may seem, if it all in good nature I let it go. Only a few times I had had to make some comments to settle.
I prefer people to be able to wear their ‘hearts on their sleeve’, yes – sometimes we get a little excited.
But on the whole I think it adds to the site – not detracts! I like being proven wrong and I actually have a chuckle sometimes when people get over excited – as long as it is in good fun – fair play to all!
Paul K: I will look into your suggestion! It is a good one, but is it possible, maybe something where you get 5 mins to edit!
Peter
Sam: Get a Gravatar of Paris Hilton or someone pretty – we need some thing to look at other than my ugly mug and Borat!
Peter
Note: I said OR someone pretty, perhaps Elizabeth could get that British Actress!
Paul Krayven
A timer on edit definately a good idea. Thanks for considering.
Robert Anthony
Simon, could you tell me what http://www.property.com.au brings to our Realestate Industry? that we do not already have now from a number of you portals. ie;- considering myhome is about to be released and adore-closed to the rich and famous only! is here.
Robert Simeon
Good question – I think that http://www.property.com.au constitutes a release. Something that REA has not exactly been a market leader in for quite some considerable time.
With REA agents are asking for better not beta !!
Peter
Just so you all know, you can click on ‘Skip to Last Comment’ or ‘Skip to Top’ at any time just by clicking on the links above and at top (below article)…
Simon Baker
Robert A, thanks for the question.
This is not a new release of realestate.com.au, it is a brand new site built from the ground up using rapid development techniques (it took 6-8 weeks to get up and running)
What does it provide for agents and the industy?
Firstly, many of the comments on these forums are around wanting to see change and innovation on the http://www.realestate.com.au site. We are all for that however we have a duty of care to 9000 advertisers and 3.7 million visitors (see Sam i can get it into a sentence again!). That means you can not just go and change things on the main site so we created a test platform. Property.com.au provides a new way of searching and presenting property details – experimentation on a large scale.
Secondly it does not cost anything more as it is FREE to agents subscribing to realestate.com.au.
Thirdly, agents dont have to double enter data – it simply pulls from the REA database. Your listings just appear.
Forthly and most importantly, if it works, there will be more leads. If it doesnt, well thee are still the 3.7 million (damn Sam – did it again) visitors to the http://www.realestate.com.au site.
Finally – i find it gives a chance for all our customers (advertisers and consumers) to have input into the site and its future development direction.
I guess the real question is what is the downside for agents? I cant think of any.
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Robert Simeon
Thanks Simon,
I adore open debate – so please tell me why REA registered the domain names for domainnorth.com.au, domaineast.com.au and domaininnerwest.com.au ? All of which are Fairfax publications ?
This is the very reason why, I, as a consumer remain annoyed that REA are not honest as they beg, borrow and steal other inniatives.
I am sure that you have a fantastic reason that would explain these registrations to REA !! Given that they are Fairfax brands ?
One can only assume REA have 3.700 million reasons why they would grab a competitors domain name.
Even Tom S, our resident stock broker with a love of realestate will enjoy reading this response.
As you know Simon, I do not come sugar coated !!
So what was your traffic grab from these URL’s ?
Robert Simeon
FYI
Those interested this is the government body that was appointed to rule on URL’s.
http://www.auda.com.au/
Cheers
Simon Baker
Robert
Thanks for the question. We did register these as they were available. We were as surprised as anyone that they were not already registered. When asked we handed them over.
Perhaps a question for you as you are part of the domain discovery team. Recently domain.com.au launched a new site called propertyguru.com.au. When they launched, they were scraping listings from realestate.com.au and dislaying them on their site. They have sinced ceased this when requested (legally) by us to cease this practice. Can you help me understand why they were doing that?
Robert, I am both offended and concerned by your assertions that we are “not honest” and “beg, borrow and steal other initiatives”. These are powerful claims. On one hand you berate us as not being innovative enough and then in the next breadth claim we “beg, borrow and steal other initiatives”. I would ask that you decide which it is and provide some evidence as to you claim. I am more than happy to address these claims in an open forum – as i have been doing for quite some time.
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Robert Simeon
Simon,
One would think that REA registered the Fairfax domain names would explore a mindset, that the REA mentality was to simply “up” online figures.
I laugh at mention of the “discovery team” as I have attended just the one meeting – as I am more tuned into my own business.
Simon, I consider that REA registered all the Fairfax junior domains as a low act. They were not owned by News Limited – rather a competitor. You handed them back because the auda, told you to do so.
Did you register all the Cumberland Newspaper Group URL’s no !!
Maybe my point is that REA should be more enlightening, as against frightening of their competitors. By grabbing the traffic from the Fairfax print offerings – identifies that even the guru’s of online are scared by this medium.
Robert Simeon
The readership will have a field day, with this announcement.
Simon, in defence please elaborate to the readership on how many stolen URL’s Fairfax have grabbed ? To improve their traffic ?
Grabbing the URL’s of competitors is “dirty, wrotten business”.
All of which happened when you were the Managing Director.
You Simon, have to take the responsiblity for REA.
Tomorrow, is another day – however it will reveal a diffferent side to how REA conduct their business operations.
Let the readership decide.REA would have have much better served by playing by the rules.
Robert Simeon
What the readership was not supposed to know is that REA registered the Fairfax domain names.
Did it improve traffic – we will never know.
Did,
the government body http://www.auda.com.au return the URL’s back to Fairfax – I understand so.
Why did REA grab the URL’s – we will never know. Many will subscribe to the opinion that it increased traffic.
No doubt – tomorrows debate will raise interesting questions !!
More importantly who fudges their figures ?
Tom S
Sorry Simon – how many visitors was that? 3.7 million?!? Wow. That must make REA one on te most visited sites in Australia. Impressive.
On the subject of ‘stealing’ URLs, by some peoples assertions someone must have stolen the ‘realestate.com.au’ URL from the real estate industry or an agent. Or was it a case of being one step ahead of the game and legally acquiring the URL. And what an aquisition! Well done Karl.
You can keep your ‘adores’ and ‘propertypages’ and ‘realmaps’. The generic realestate.com.au URL is a real asset to have both from a local viewpoint and internationally.
Sorry Peter – getting a little off the track here.
I tend to somewhat agree with Gerard, that some of bloggers on this site are sometimes petty, childish, unreasonable and bloody-minded, which will put people off this site. I don’t mind the occasional dig in the right context, but sometimes is consumes the post. Like the guy that always likes to get the last word in, even if there is no relevance to the post – any guesses.
On the subject of the new Business2 revamp, it’s growing on me and has some great new additional features – it’s a bit like the release of a new BMW model (I’m sure that there’s plenty around Mossman) – it doesn’t feel quite right at 1st, then after about 3 months starts to grow on you.
Simon B, when are your preliminaries being released?
Dave Bowker
Test Edit Comment
Peter Ricci
Many years ago I used a service to reserve a domain name realestate.com.au if it ever became available through someone not re-registering it….Oh yes and cars.com.au…..
Many years ago it was impossible to get a generic domain name as only business names were available. I do remember having an argument with MelbourneIT over the fact that News Ltd were able to secure news.com.au – in the end the sales rep ended up telling me that it was because they probably paid someone off (he was cheesed at me by the end) I must say I was fuming back then but can laugh about it now.
So I can sit here and say, that if a company is stupid enough not to secure domain names of premium products and services they deserve to lose them….
Peter
Paul Krayven: I have now installed a feature whereby you can EDIT your comments for 30 minutes after posting….
Sam
“Robert, I am both offended and concerned by your assertions that we are
Simon Baker
Tom
Our half year results will probaby be out Monday. We have Board meeting tomorrow to finalise a few bits and pieces and it usually takes a day or two after that.
Sam – good morning – great to see you back – did i mention we had 3.7 million visitors to the site in January?
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Sam
Yes you did and I believe some of them may have been actually looking for homes to buy.
Sam
Just had a look at http://www.propertyguru.com.au seems REA have copied Fairfax again with http://www.property.com.au , the front interface is way too similar to be co incidental.
Simon Baker
Sam
Who really shot JKF? Was it someone on the grassy knoll?
Ok … now to other conspiracy theories.
Perhaps you would like to check out http://www.nestoria.co.uk? They have a nest on the home page, http://www.propertyguru.com.au has an owl. Perhaps this is mere coincidence.
Or did we all copy http://www.trulia.com – they have single search box on the home page?
Or was it http://www.extate.co.uk? Ah … the plot thickens
Or is it really google that we are all looking at …
Simon Baker
MD REA Group
Sam
Thanks for pointing out some of your research sources. I think directly copying a local competitor is poor form and a a different kettle of fish from getting ideas from other sites overseas.
You seem to have your bases covered by knowing in advance there are similar sites in other countries that you can point to to take the heat off your leeching practises.
Well done.
Matt
Is it just me or does http://www.property.com.au still just redirect to http://www.realestate.com.au? I still can’t see it!
Peter
Hello and welcome Matt, I cannot replicate this problem, maybe you Internet provider is caching pages on their local server… (a thing of the past I thought)
Should be up and running again soon and hope to hear more from you….
Matt
Okay, I’ve just figured out what the problem is (for me at least). If I go to http://www.property.com.au, it redirects to REA, but if I go to property.com.au (without the WWW) it works.
Dave Platter
(I work at realestate.com.au Ltd/the REA Group)
Peter, you pointed out something that we certainly agree with: traffic isn’t as important to agents as leads.
You’ll be happy to know that, after some quick number crunching, I’ve figured out that the number of email leads agents receive from realestate.com.au has increased even faster than our traffic in the past year.
As Simon mentioned, between January 2006 and Jan 2007 realestate.com.au increased the number of email leads it provided to agents from 410,000 to 580,000.
That’s 41% more leads–a higher percentage increase than the increase in actual traffic (30.5%).
Of course, we’re going to keep working on bumping both those numbers even higher. If we had our way, agents like Robert wouldn’t even have to leave their desks; realestate.com.au would just deliver their buyers right to their office promptly at 9 AM.
(We could try to arrange for a later delivery if certain agents prefer to start work a bit late.)
Dave
Robert Simeon
Tom S,
“On the subject of
Tom S
Must be a full moon.
Sam
Tom if you’re a broker can you throw any light on why Fairfax shares have gone down over the past week while the general market goes through the roof ?