Realestate.com.au has had a stellar year by any standards and continues its growth both here in Australia and overseas announcing a net profit of 15.06 million up from 8.2 million the previous year.
But where can it continue growth? Its’ overseas markets are an obvious area to grow with most of them losing money or breaking even, however Australia is where most of its profits are generated.
No matter how many many people dislike the site and some of REA’s subscription plans it still continues to be the ‘must have place’ to advertise residential sales and lease listings.
Competition from Domain.com.au should get stronger in the coming year with its Rural Press acquisition and integration but do not expect this to lower subscription prices at all. Aside from Domain REA have no real competition and as I have said many times it will take the behemoth Google to make a difference in the long term here.
I think subscription prices are about right now and I would not like to see them increase even further. I would really like REA to find their growth elsewhere. REA must really be appreciate what real estate agents in Australia have given them. It affords REA the revenue to grow overseas and hopefully they will understand this and keep subscription prices about the same for the coming years. I will not hold my breath on that one. After all REA is a listed company and its shareholders would be demanding double digit growth well into the future. Growth will also come from private agencies across Australia leaving franchises and branching out on their own (private agencies would pay more per annum). I would like to get some figures on this but it seems to be an ever increasing trend from my experience.
I look forward to the new site coming soon (I hope so) but really for REA it is steady as she goes. You can read the full article here from the Age.