In another post I was asked to comment about my thoughts on the recent article in the Australian Real Estate Bulletin on myhome titled “Under Renovation”. Since that question was off topic I thought it worthwhile to give the response its own post.
If you have not seen the article you can read the online version (whilst Issue 2 is still on display) at www.areb.com.au/emag.php.
I think myhome has huge potential but it just has a couple of big hairy monkeys on its back that it has to shake off.
The first is the reputation of the dismal failure of its previous owners and that’s exactly what that article was about. It’s funny that Shane states in the article that he does not believe PBL tarnished the myHome name but then spends the rest of the article distancing himself from the previous owners and claiming the new site will be fundamentally different. It did nothing else but scream “It Wasn’t Me!!”.
How big this particular monkey is only time will tell but the article does a good job of spreading the right news for him. The other big hairy thing weighing myhome down is the whole data issue that Robert often refers to. There database has too many inaccuracies and its a problem they have had since day one. Better it maybe but fixed it is not. On top of this myHome now has the double whammy and that is very little data and what is there is too often either out of date or is just plain wrong.
I did a quick count of houses and units for sale in Nerang.
Realestate.com.au has all 8 Nerang based agents and 253 listings for Houses and Units in Nerang
Domain.com.au has 3 Nerang based agents and 133 listings for Houses and Units in Nerang
Myhome.com.au has just 1 of the Nerang based agents and 35 houses and Units in Nerang however 6 of them are multiple entries of the same property by the same agent.
It is not unusual to find the same property listed by many agents on any portal) ie. an open listing) but the same property should only be listed by the same agent once. Both realestate.com.au and domain.com.au jump on these very quickly to keep their data as clean as possible. myHome needs to place as much of its time to clean up what its got on their now as it does to finding new data sources.
The problem for myHome (and for domain for that matter) is that although they still have property for sale, realestate.com.au has the same properties and more… much much more. I know that is not the case in every district in Australia but it is for the vast majority.
There are still positives for myhome though. The site is getting much better lately. On a strictly technology front it is far superior to the other two major portals. It’s failure to attract audience was never about the technology, it was the user interface that had the problems.
No doubt the hardware that he got in the deal was the best money could buy and we already know it was put under much higher loads that what it is seeing now. Many of the multi-loaders and real estate groups already have data connections set-up to myhome. They have just been switched off and Shane’s job is to get them to switch it back on.
I think the industry as a whole would like to see him succeed. I can still remember disgruntled staff members blaming real estate agents on this blog for myhome’s failure. Nothing could be further than the truth. I don’t know anybody that likes realestate.com.au’s dominance of the real estate industry. I have been to a number of training events recently where the speakers have specifically spoken out about agents getting out from under the control of REA. Healthy competition should do that and to borrow from the democrats, a strong myHome will keep the “bastards” honest.
I wish Shane all the best. I hope for our sake that he can pull it off. If he can fix the data errors we will be lending our support by flicking the switch and I would urge everyone else to as well. But like always, if that results in angry phone calls from buyers about wrong data, old listings etc that plagued the old myHome we will turn it off again just as fast.
A second chance … Yes!
A third… No!
36 Comments
Tony
Changing the subject everyone because I had delivered to our office this week a real estate bulletin and in it is Shane Dale and his Myhome.com.au and our very own Glen Batten. Can I ask you Glen what did you think of this artical about Shanes myhome.com.au?
Glenn Batten
Thanks Tony.. I am still waiting on my copy. We might have the sunshine and the beaches up here in Queensland, but the mail can take an extra day or two sometimes.. I have the proof of my article but have not seen the rest of the mag. If it is not in today’s mail I will look at the online version at http://www.areb.com.au tonight when I get a chance.
Robert Simeon
As for the article Under Renovation my advice to Shane Dale would be to remove all electricity to his Myhome website until such time that 100 per cent sure of its accuracy. It is a joke to look at the listings he has in our area some years old.
Myhome remains as accurate as a NSW government budget projection. It will be very difficult for myhome to be treated seriously when the oxygen to the business (agents) find it a laughing stock as it remains riddled with inaccuracies.
SSSR
It would have been good to get a bit more out of article than we have regarding MyHome. Understandably they would want to keep key items close, but its a feature magazine, tell us how your portal will be better!!
Its free, that is a good start for the agents. It doesnt have major franchise ownership, another plus. So providing the user interface is improved, it should be a good portal.
The real question is… how to get eye balls. How deep are your pockets?? That is the real question. Some people know MyHome and will continue to visit, but without the distribution channels, and taking into account people’s habits, unless they can get the message out far and wide, better than before and under new management, its going to be tough.
Glenn Batten
Robert… thanks mate… but my copy should be here tomorrow hopefully sans any crumbs 🙂
Given the couple of comments on it, I am very much looking forward to reading the myhome article.
I know its only the second edition but how is everyone finding the AREB magazine in general?
Shane Dale
Seems like this is turning into a sideline myhhome discussion – so here are a few more tidbits to keep things going.
The interface is changing as fast as we can manage it. Every week we will be releasing changes – the timeline is flexible. I have kept my cards close to my chest, as everyone has an eye on us. Sorry the article is a little lightweight and feelgood, but they say – forewarned is forearmed – so I prefer my competitors unwarned.
Unfortunately i will be keeping the electricity on Robert, anyone with outdated info can simply call for a manual password and update their stock directly and we have renewed the loader system – its working fine, ( the changeover didnt help continuity its true) but realistically focus is on getting the site right before we go chasing more agents. At the end of the day – agents are responsible for accuracy of listings – how would I know if they are old? I think thats a reasonable duty of care for agents to manage their listings on a free site.
Everyone is waiting – and there are tests afoot to prove my concepts, I will know the results over the next few months.
Its been a big job migrating the entire system from PBL in SA to us in Sydney. However am very happy with progress, and hoping to pick up speed very soon.
Once again, my thanks to the honest and constructive opinions of everyone. The renovation is in progress!
Shane Dale
One more thing – regarding the “how deep are my pockets” its worth noting that google, youtube, facebook and others haven’t spent cast sums on advertising – the interface is key combined with a great proposition and that’s where I am starting.
The battle isn’t always won by deep pockets. I hope you are all cheering this project on! The agents will not lose from my efforts.
SSSR
Shane, I certainly support the free listing format. I think it is good for the subscribers and therefore its good for the consumers like myself.
My comment about the $$ factor is more out of interest in how your organisation will go changing consumer habits.
You may have a better portal and be offering free listings, but habits are hard to break. Unless people know the site is new and improved, their favourites bar is not going to change quickly. Deep pockets also are a referral in keeping the lights on long enough to get that incremental traction.
That all said however, I will be certainly amending my favourites list to include your site.
Robert Simeon
Shane,
Thanks for the update – but why not shut the site down until you are ready to launch? If I look at Mosman houses (you have 33) prices are all over the place like a dogs breakfast and I noticed mistakes on every page.
Just like when PBL owned it – customer service is out the kitchen window.
Good luck
Peter Ricci
You will notice I have moved some comments across from old post to this post.
Gemma Duff
Unfortunately RealEstate.com.au and Domain have not jumped on agents in our area putting up listings multiple times. We certainly dont want to join them by doing the same thing, but what are we to do when realestate.com.au refuse to get on top of these agents. It’s making us look like the agent in the area with the fewest listings, which is far from the truth.
Robert Simeon
One of my greatest bug bears with the property portals have been based on inactivity not activity.
Recently, I was asked where I saw the next wave of online property marketing and my response was that “viral” marketing would be all the go running in pursuit of successful generic brands.
I saw one emerge today on the popular business e-zine business spectator – here is the link and Unique Homes (another new portal) has grabbed this initiative http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/RPT-Anxious-Lehman-staff-in-Asia-await-reckoning-JH8W8?OpenDocument
Then you have the print side and News Ltd have a newish online business http://www.truelocal.com.au where they could (if they understood) run properties off all their local newspapers and over ride the portals. Supporting print with online as the two actually compliment each other and establish more importantly a unified front. They also have http://www.news.com.au to play with also.
Fairfax Media have their junior domains and why they don’t have an online version for say http://www.domainnorth.com.au just escapes me as this is a license to print money with third party advertising and again it supports both print and online not to mention data aggregates.
The only thing that I see today, is consistent bureaucratic procrastination which are now becoming more and more obvious for some (and not others).
Plenty of “rivers of gold” although some still convince me that they remain in mental drought – they can although be thankful for duplication of other peoples ideas.
Glenn Batten
Shane,
“At the end of the day – agents are responsible for accuracy of listings – how would I know if they are old? I think thats a reasonable duty of care for agents to manage their listings on a free site.”
I 100% totally disagree with this.
Expecting agents to act fairly and properly and to ensure your database is accurate and up to date is never going to work.
No matter what your revenue model is, you are totally responsible for ensuring the data you are presenting is up to date and accurate. Agents will forget to remove listings… prompt them.. How hard is it to automatically send an email on every property still on the market advising that the property has been on the system for x number of days. The property will be removed in 3 business days unless they confirm that they still have a valid authority for sale and the property is still actively on the market. No confirmation, automatically removed.
Agents will multiple load the same property to capture more enquiries… stop them. You have the address when you are sent properties. Duplicates should be detected then and stopped … plus it would not take too long to find duplicate listings that exist now and send every higher priced one a notice of removal within 24 hours of all… Or you could do what Google does and stack them together. Show only one property and advise the buyer when they click on it that the agent has the same property listed at 4 different prices.
Imagine that with open listings that clog up the other portals….. developer stock and open listings listed by multiple agencies are stacked and when a buyer clicks on it they are given which agency loads for that property. Let the buyer choose.. In your current model your clients are the prospective buyers and agents are just your data source.
If agents wont stop cheating the system .. ban them. I would have thought that myhome V1 would have taught you lessons re data accuracy. Moving to a subscriptionless model does not remove the burden off your shoulders in my mind.
Robert Simeon
LOL – Just breaks me up!
Journalistsic Honesty
Glenn,
I think is only fair to your readers that you disclose to them that you are a ‘Contributing Writer’ to the Australasian Real Estate Bulletin (AREB).
Whether this creates any conflicts of interest in the how / what you communicate is for the reader to decide.
Your question “I know its only the second edition but how is everyone finding the AREB magazine in general?” is leading to say the least, when it is disclosed your more than passing connection to this publication.
Glenn Batten
Jounalistic Honesty,
When I wrote this article it was actually after the comment you are referring to because it was moved from another topic (the Google Chrome topic).
I see your point in general here but somebody had raised my involvement in the magazine already in an earlier post. I acknowledged that and responding to a question they asked and in that process also asked in in general what they thought of the magazine.
It was not something I wanted to hide from in the slightest. Besides, I don’t agree with you that my question is leading in any way. I am interested in how everyone is finding that particular magazine because of my involvement, certainly, no question about that but the question itself is not leading in my mind.
Just for the record though. You have chosen to post anonymously questioning my journalistic integrity even though I am no journalist. As you should be aware as contributing writers to this blog we have access to your IP address and your email that you used to make your post and can see why you chose to make it an anonymous post. In fact I would suggest that you have a far greater bias attached to your post that I do and your own conflict of interest has not been disclosed so its a bit like a pot and kettle story to me.
I don’t know why you are miffed.. didn’t get the story maybe?… I don’t really know…. and frankly don’t care… but if you have an issue with your competitor come out and declare it, don’t hide in the shadows and then be a hypocrite about it by questioning my disclosure…
Besides, If you are going to hide at least dont use your work email address. It really does give you away pretty quickly 🙂
Looking at my inbox several people deduced exactly who you were. Read into that what you will.
Disagree with my opinion by all means but please dont try and drag me into any dispute you have with AREB. I am as you pointed out just a contributing writer… both to this blog and to the AREB magazine, both things I enjoy and hopefully others are getting something out of. Not everyone… but maybe some.
Can I conclude that you are not a fan of the AREB magazine then? 🙂
Shane Dale
Data inaccuracies.
1. anyone wanting a password to manually edit their listings can get one now from myhome anytime.
2. wilful data innacuracies like an agent having multiple instances of the same property will be programmed out, when time allows. This type of thing needs special scripting to identify abusers of the system, I am assessing whats in place and time frames for adding this programming. I welcome suggestions and examples if found on the site.
3. myhome doesnt put the data there – its uploaded by the agent or the group. Agents are responsible for the accuracy of that, we are responsible for loading it correctly. Following up on suspected old listings and taking action, is required. I will add some effort to this process, but I suspect the current data feeds are all good, and old data is due mainly to the disorganised way the site was wound down with the main groups.
4. data cleansing – a review of old listings needs to be done, and alot has already been done, with more to follow soon ( this is the legacy data from the PBL era) I will be more aggressively removing old listings this month to start a fresh slate.
5. turning the site off, even for a while drastically hurts search engine rankings, something we cannot afford to do, so we have simply worked through as fast as we can. We are getting faster now the basics have been done – like re establishing the entire system, without significant server downtime.
regards,
Shane Dale
Sal Espro
Gee Shane,
How on earth did you ever get the huge $dough from PBL (*and* Microsoft!) for a system that doesn’t even reject duplicate listings?!
From what you have said here, you don’t have a great handle on the marketplace either. Be cafeful to avoid thinking your ‘baby’ was anything better than it ever was!
Ps What was Myhome called before it was ‘corporatised’? Who used it? And would you mind sharing with us how was it valued?
Sal Espro
Bye, bye, Myhome.com.au (Sorry, Shane!)
(and probably Realestateview as well! – Gotta wonder what the REIV thinks about their data partner going-in to bat against them….)
http://www.findmeahome.com.au
All that is left is for this Residex crowd to take listings directly now.
Time to start inserting that little bit of code to make all your properties visible to Google, Glenn. (Remember I asked about it a while ago – So what if some listings are cached by search engines and left on the web a little while after being sold if it means the overall real estate marketing process is going to improve).
Funny isn’t it how Property Monitors started doing the same thing with their portal but closed under the excuse they were threatened by Realestate com au. Some people have the spine for it and others ….
Sam Bonkowski
Shane,
I congratulate you for your effort.
Sam Bonkowski
ivisual
Glenn Batten
Sal Espro,
You can feed Google your listing data just as easily as realestate.com.au, domain.com.au and myhome.com.au.. Even though they have not launched their real estate solution in Australia…… YET.. there is nothing stopping you loading them onto their overseas databases like Harcourts and many other individual agents do.
In Google’s case in particular if your listings are provided to them properly they are integrated into many of their products which is far better than trying to get them just indexed in their search engine.
Even if you get some success trying to get your properties indexed like normal web pages I am afraid it will only end in dissappointment (for all the reasons previously mentioned) for you and your customers as your competitors will probably be doing it the way that Google wants to receive this information and be featured at the top of SERPs, in Google Maps and probably on a few other mashup sites as well. Their listings will be accurate and up to date as well as being in a database that can be searched so consumers will be place a higher trust level with them.
Worry about getting your content pages indexed into the search engines and leave the property pages to data feeds that they all want.
If you cant do this, then I suggest you wait till Google officially launches their real estate solution in Australia. It will probably mirror their US version which means that you can make a special request for them to scrape the listing from your website. This works at a level above their normal googlebot and is specifically for real estate listings.
Nick Buick
Last time I checked, Google Base had so many bugs it wasn’t even worth bothering. Have they fixed this yet?
Nick Buick
Whoooooaaa, we’re onto you now Glenn… Glenn Batten is, in fact, Rupert Murdoch in a rubber mask – posing as a realestate agent to conceal his evil world-domination adgenda of perverting the mass media through articles he posts on Busines2.com.au…. Jesus H Christ give me a break.
I would have taken it as a given that anyone writting articles for this site would contribute on numerous property related publications.
And how is writing for multiple publications, in a similar vein, somehow construed to be a conflict of interest anyway? It just adds to your credibility, if anything.
Glenn, did you use your real name when writing articles for these publications? If so… there’s your acknowledgement right there… what more do people want? An Oxford Bibliography at the footer of every post? Get over it – its a website.
It really is embarrassing to see these anonimous cowards coming on here and posting their drivel… Name-and-shame the bitch Glenn.
*starts chanting* Name-And-Shame, Name-And-Shame…
Glenn Batten
Nick,
Google Base is just a huge online database. It is not a classified site.. its just that because you have the ability to search it using its inteface it can act like a classified site but it also does much more.
The power of it is not in Google Base’s user interface which is as you pointed out could be improved. Where the power of uploading your properties to Google Base resides is what everyone does with those database records. What they do with your listings.
The biggest user will be Google itself as it integrates listings into Google Maps and the normal Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS). Remember that Simon said in the interview he did with Peter that 30% of realestate.com.au traffic still comes from Google. All of those people and much more will now be offered the chance to view the listings you have uploaded to Google Base. The advantage? If it was you who uploaded them, the visitor will be sent to your website, not to the property portals.
No doubt Google’s rollout in Australia will trigger a number of Real Estate Mashups as well but the one database will drive them all.
Creating your own mini portal could soon be a fairly simple affair as it is in other places around the world as you combine the Google Base and Google Maps into your own site such as:
http://www.restate.ae/
http://realestate.marketwatch101.com/
http://www.mightyhomes.co.uk/
http://www.virginiarenters.com/
http://www.agentearth.com/
and many others.
Peter has been calling for realestate.com.au and domain.com.au to open up their databases for quite a while by releasing an api but as of yet they have failed to do this. When google arrives they have the api already in place and the portals will have lost the first mover advantage. Google Base will become the data solution of choice for a number of small portals that will pop up.. http://www.westernsydneyrealestate.com.au for instance.
If REA offered an api, besides further justifying their subscription fees they could have insulated themselves by spawning other portals using their data. Instead they wanted to be the tall poppy forcing everyone to visit their portal for the information so they can sell third party advertising. But a marketplace with just two major players holding such a huge market share is far more vulnerable.
SSSR
Is Google actually going to launch something in Australia? If it is the Google Base solution that is currently active in the US, its pretty basic. It hasnt seemingly taken any market share from the likes of Zillow, Realtor or Trulia??
Glenn, like you said, what is stopping agents from using that now, it seems to have listings from all over the place. Do they then need to launch and Australian specific one if it already has a global focus?
Nick Buick
Rupert, I was referring to the bugs with Base’s backend. Last time I used it, it wouldn’t accept my XML data for no real reason at all… sometimes it would… and other times it wouldn’t even though the files were clean. It wanted everything in US dollars, etc, etc. I eventually wrote it off as simply being ghey (a trait that’s rare in Google software) and stopped trying to feed it. Might reinvestigate now… it was in early stages back then too so probably improved since.
You’re dead right about portals opening up their databases… but don’t waste your breath. No point preaching this stuff to entrenched media dinosaurs… they view the web like a backlit. I don
Glenn Batten
SSSR,
Google Base has 5 million properties in the US. The US market has huge numbers of portals, so much so that the biggest, realtor.com has only a 4.5% market share.
Because the market is so fractured it is hard for anybody to get a good marketshare.
I believe that loading Australian properties up to the Google Base now before the Australian version is released would only give limited results but I have never tried it so I dont really know. Maybe the agents are using it more for a point of difference when listing properties, maybe they do get buyers enquries. They are yet not getting the added benefits that an Australian version would bring (ie. integration in SERPS and Maps)… but there are a lot of agencies that do it.. It could just be a case of preparing for the Australian version they have everything hooked up, so its a simple matter of sending them to the US and UK databases…. so why not. It costs nothing and can only give positive results..
An Australian Google Base brings all of the extra integration that in mind makes it all worth it.
As to a launch in Australia its inevitable of course as Australians love Google and vice versa. You just have to look at the recent Google StreetView to see that. Look at how much of Australia they covered.
Getting a hold of the real estate data should not be a problem either. If they can make arrangements with the top 15 real estate groups it only really leaves independents and many of those operate through a handful of web/xml companies and I know one of those responsible for a sizable percentage of all Australian agencies already has the data connection in place ready to go.
Google Base versions released so far have been the US, UK and Germany. Australia is a natural progression and it is only a matter of time I think.. Peter might have some news real soon on the outlook of Google Base in Australia 🙂
I would be asking my head office or my xml providor if they have a connection in place ready to go should the service be released. The api is available so there should be nothing stopping them preparing to feed data.
Glenn Batten
Craig,
That exact thing has been discussed on here before. Peter Ricci actually posted an open letter asking for interested parties and got a great response but he is the one to tell you where that has moved forward to.
There were two lines of thought. One on an xml standard that all industry participants could agree on and use. This could be put in place fairly easily I would think as long as it had the support of the majority and the majors.
The second train of thought that I certainly preferred was a central data storage. That would be expensive and quite an undertaking so would require “sponsorship” by somebody.
Craig
What would be good to see would be an open online database that anyone could hook into. I think if one of the multi-poster companies got involved it would be a huge help. An REST based API could be developed that anyone can query. Basically it would be along the lines of Google Base but that obviously is not available in Australia yet (ever?). I think there would probably need to be some subscription fee along the lines somewhere like a $100 annual fee to agents to finance it all unless it want’s to be financed by industry associations.
SSSR
Glenn,
Appreciate your explaination, I now understand the benefits and thus the anticipation from an Agent perspective.
I was looking at it from which service I would prefer to use as a consumer. I like portals because they provide some value added services, like home alerts, aggregated content from multiple agencies and filtered search interface, all wrapped up in one location.
From what I can gather, the portals would still be the major source of leads, but Google organic search would increase in value for agencies via Google Base.
Craig
Glenn,
I think a central hosted data source with a web API would be the preferred model. It would make it much easier for third-parties to build upon. The more free and open the better.
Glenn Batten
SSSR,
What effect this will have at the end of the day is anybody’s guess. The good news as far as I can see is that it cant harm the situation as far as agents and consumers are concerned, it can only make it better by providing downward pressure on the subscriptions of the current portals.
For plain vanilla horizontal search Google is King and even more so here in Australia where it dominates the local search market place. If you need more than plain vanilla horizontal search for real estate, you have to go vertical which is where the current portals come into play. Whilst you cant rule anything out, Google will probably not invade the vertical space however through their api’s they will probably let others use their data to construct real estate vertical solutions. It is these mashups that will probably compete directly with REA and Domain however because they utilise Google’s database of listings they can do so with virtually no outlay. No huge sales staff required, no executive salary packages to pay for, no massive hardware solutions required. The portals will possibly find a lot more competition in the vertical space with no one site having their market share but collectively it may be a different story. Like an invasion of fire ants, each single bite hurts but is more of an annoyance, but a whole colony can inflict massive injury.
Google will integrate your listings into their horizontal search products. Search for an actual address, and you will be offered to look at the properties for sale around that address. Search for Nerang real estate and they will offer to show you properties for sale or for rent in Nerang.
The question for all of the subscription or ad-supported vertical real estate portals (including those potential mashup sites) is if their added-value is enough to induce home searchers to click through to their site
Nick Buick
Glenn – hahaha, Domain or REA should put you on the payrole… that idea is so devilishly evil, I’m surprised they haven’t thought of / started doing this themselves, already.
Glenn Batten
Nick,
You honestly think they wont try ?? or at least think about it??.. I know for a fact the other side of the coin is true … groups are going/have gone to a direct google feed.
Robert Simeon
My understanding is that the direct feed application is due for release either later this year or early next year. We will be using this application (once available) in our website that Peter is developing which hopefully is just a few weeks away from going live 🙂
lol'ing spectator
The Real Estate Industry as a whole is doomed to stay in the dark ages because there is no collaboration or communal interest in seeing the best result for all concerned.
Short term interests are served before all else.
Small business owners & minds…
When will this cycle end?