In a huge industry move realestateview has just acquired Myhome one of their key competitors in the real estate portal space. This move by realestateview follows their recent expansion into other states and territories across Australia.
As Petra Sprekos explains on Property Portal Watch the “acquisition complements realestateview.com.au’s existing offering for estate agents and consumers and will substantially increase content”. It will be interesting to see whether Myhome will remain free for agents to list properties.
This is very exciting, as now an Industry based portal is the 3rd largest in Australia and should start gathering real momentum to have a shot at Domain.
33 Comments
Peter Ricci
Will be interesting to know why? Expect an article shortly Shane!
Peter Brewer
Fascinating Strategic Move. I wonder where the REIQ stands on the issue of an Industry or institute owned portal or if they have an involvement here?.. I may well have I missed something from them. Anyone heard?
Vic
Predictable.
ReView was never going to make it unless they provided a free to list portal. Now, as they fill My Home’s portal what use will their pay to list site be.
They simply would have been better off converting ReView to free to list and saved themselves the expense of buying My Home.
I understand Shane is being retained as CEO.
Can’t wait to see what happens.
Greg Vincent
Shane & I were chatting about this at the NSW Launch of RealEstateView.com.au at the Opera House. Interesting to see how quickly it has all come together. The link with the NSW regional/north coast publications will make the deal quite interesting.
PaulD
Wrong horse I think Greg.
Craig
This is an interesting move. They say they will be running both concurrently which doesn’t seem to make much sense. I would expect REV to probably close down MyHome become their main product sometime in the coming months.
Shane Dale
Vic, I am not CEO, merely retained as a consultant and technical service provider – albeit a willing and helpful one. Enzo and Petra are at the helm, and my advice is given – and taken at their discretion.
At this stage I prefer to let them do the talking, apart from the fact that any larger aggregation of industry owned listings is a welcome move and is effectively unstoppable once it gains a certain momentum.
Its better to make friends than rivals, so I think it makes alot of sense.
I will be more focussed now on http://www.surroundpix.com.au
PaulD
Well I guess that the agents who aren’t paying anything at MyHome will join the agents that aren’t paying anything at REView. It will be interesting to see how long that situation lasts.
James
Peter,
To answer your question and I will stand corrected but I don’t think that the REIQ are on board as yet.
REV has simply bought content (current and historical) and no real revenue streams, lets just hope that they have some funds left to drive traffic to this content otherwise it will have been an expensive exercise.
Mac
What are REView’s current fees?
Are they broken-down into i) the management system ($?) + ii) posting fee(s) to REA & Domain + ii) the REView portal ($?) or just one monthly $fee (& is this an annual upfront or month x month fee?)
Thx,
Mac
Ricky
I’m with PaulD in that these two horses are still way behind and it must be a fairly long term strategy they have constructed. Anything is better than nothing I guess and Petra is a good operator.
Glenn Batten
I think its a great strategic play. How well it pays off is still to be determined but it gives Realestateview the ability to scale up.
The REIQ will have their own release soon I believe but I would like to see them feed to a central nationwide portal.
What about this for a plan….??
We know that there are some successful plays by institutes at a state level such as REIWA and REIV and they both also have data plays back to agents as well. REIQ is about to launch a similar portal also I believe with a data solution.
What if each of those smaller plays focus on their individual states and then they all upload to Myhome.
Myhome becomes the national portal and it continues to be free and continues to receive feeds direct from major portal pushers for any agents that dont want a state based subscription.
Shane Dale
Vic, I am not CEO, I am just providing technical services and consulting to Enzo and Petra at REIV – they are at the helm.
My views will be given to them, but its their call for their strategy.
In due course I might write an article to cover the entire storyline, but realistically there needs to be a combined effort to reach momentum together, not a fractured approach. I prefer not to comment too much as its no longer my role, I will leave that to Petra.
I will say that this collaboration along with REIWA is the most able industry owned entity to surface with real option to compete effectively at a national level. Joining the winning team is good idea.
Robert Simeon
I believe the strategy would be to rollout a united domain name and My Home would achieve that goal. Instead of what remains a fractured portal (some in – some out) a united domain name would make sense for a national strategy attack. So in essence the acquisition was in my opinion about securing a smart domain name with national appeal.
Vic
Shane,
Thanks for clearing that up. Missread the portal watch article.
Would probably be a better deal for you to have headed the new combined effort. I think it would have made a lot of agent members in Vic a lot more comfortable.
Nick
Craig I thought it was a slightly odd move as well in that MyHome competes with REV and if they continue to keep both running then its slightly confusing.
Although buying the competition is the fastest way to grow a portal which is a good move.
Stan
I would have thought that persisting with myhome is like flogging a dead horse…I think people are thinking way too much about this.
I owuld be interested in knowing the acquisition amount. My tip is that REVIEW merely took myhome on in exchange for taking on some of its debt…
PaulD
Glenn, Nothing will happen nationally without Queensland. It represents one third of the national quantity of agents and probably slightly more than one third of the listings – so it and NSW are the two most important pieces of the puzzle, because combined, they represent 60% plus of the national data set. I think your idea has merit, because when all said and done – the people in each state – for the most part – only care about their own state, and when they want to search other states, they can easily find the other state listings.
Mac
Can anyone answer my question about costs of REView please?
Vic
Just had an informative and interesting phone conversation with Enzo Raimondo following my comment above. He was interested what if any issues I have with Realestateview.
We talked about the future of internet advertising,value of data and where realestateview is going with myhome. Enzo, naturally didn’t outline his strategic approach, but the conversation left me with the strong impression that rebranding may be part of the mix for the future, and that data will be the larger portion of the groups income stream.
He also explained the reasoning behind Review’s decision to only feed to two other portals ie Domain and Realestate.com.
Realestateview clearly have the Victorian Agent market wrapped up and in doing so are effectively precluding their agents from making choices in their advertising strategies. Whether deliberate or not this strategy is not working in the best interests of their member agents.
For example our own take up of agents /property listings across Australia in the past 4 weeks has seen an excellent spread across the States of QLD, NSW, WA and Tas, but very little from Victoria. It is hard work to tap into this market.
We are a niche market free to list site concentrating on the niche of properties on or near the water. We are not in competition with Review or any of the other major all properties sites, so doesn’t it make sense for this service to be offered to agents in Victoria through their majority Industry owned Portal? I hope to be able to negotiate a position with Petra but am doubtful of getting there unless Enzo and Petra understands that we are not only NOT a threat to their business but a benefit to their member agents.
Enzo, sorry if I cast aspersions on review’s management.. not intended, only frustrated that Review seems not to see a low cost opportunity when it presents itself.
The issue that I have raised in the past regarding providing a full advertising service to member agents still remains.
Petra Sprekos
Hi All,
Glad to see a lot of interest in our latest acquisition. We are still awaiting Business2 to release my blog article on the topic so hopefully this will be done today.
To respond specifically to your question Mac – pricing varies state by state.
It is important to note that realestateVIEW.com.au comprises of a subscription to list unlimited listings across all categories (residential, commercial, holiday rentals); access to rental archives; as well as free multi loading to REA and Domain. This is all within the one fee, and it is not broken up in parts.
In Victoria realestateVIEW.com.au is sold via a metro, rural or regional subscription for unlimited listings or under a pay per listing model for agencies who sell less than 18 properties per annum. Prices range from $200 per month to $400 per month.
In South Australia realestateVIEW.com.au is sold via a subscription, pay per listing model or as package with Propertydata.com.au and Go Prospecting under the VIEW package. Prices range from $200 per month to $399 per month for the package.
In New South Wales (NSW) realestateVIEW.com.au is sold as package with Propertydata.com.au and Go Prospecting under the VIEW package
Petra Sprekos
Hi All,
Sorry all, forgot to detail the pricing for Tasmania – this is $220 per month.
Cheers
Petra
Greg Vincent
Paul, I’ve always been on the right horse. I’m riding on the side of helping the real estate agents.
That’s why I’ve posted articles on this site about ‘How agents can get more out of REA without having to pay them any extra money.’
I also told REA that there House Hunter Video thing was going to be damaging to agents and their listings. (it dissapeared within 48 hours)
I also highlighted that Domain stuffed up by uploading 1700 Private Sellers in One Go (I’m not 100% sure but I heard that they did a re-think).
Plus, News Limited had signed-off on the video for their ‘For What It’s Worth’ campaign but fortunately Tom Panos asked me to take a look at it first before they printed off thousands of copies. (All I can say is thank heavens they left part of the original video on the cutting room floor).
Also, I was invited to present Social Media at an annual digital meeting of the institutes of Aust & NZ and REV execs. Plus, I’ve met with the REINSW to help them get a strategy together for their Social Media marketing.
I’ve also conducted Social Media training for some of the REA staff members & have told REA all along that they need to do more to help educate agents about using the internet more effectively rather than always trying to upsell their products.
All of this information and consultation has been volunteered and/or done at my own expense. I am not on the payroll at the REIV as some have suggested. I’m not on the payroll anywhere and don’t want to be.
At this point, I feel that I can do more to help the agents and the industry by providing thoughts and ideas with no strings attached.
If Domain or any of the other portals, franchise groups or agents want some help or want to run something passed me then my door is always open.
I always try to look at things from the agents’ perspective.
Finally, I think competition is a great thing. It will continue to force the portals towards innovation and if the REV + MyHome merger makes the big 2 sit up and take notice then I believe that our industry will be much better for it moving forward.
PS: I’ve received numerous emails from agents complaining about REA’s latest price hike and I had an agent contact me yesterday complaining about the 3rd party advertising that is appearing right next to their listings on REA.
Here’s the advertisement http://screencast.com/t/OGMwNTZk. It says something about ‘Swindled Again & the Great Australian Rip Off” right next to an agent’s feature listing that their client is paying $182/month for.
I think the portals need to be reminded that agents are entrusted with marketing what is normally someone’s greatest asset and the portals are not only a medium for the agents to promote on but they are also the caretakers of the agents content and need to be very careful what other content they allow onto their sites.
Paul, I hope this clears up which horse I am backing and will continue to back. Cheers 🙂
PaulD
Greg,
Your comment “The link with the NSW regional/north coast publications will make the deal quite interesting.” is not even in the same race let alone the wrong horse. It’s too long and too complicated to explain here, and the old comment ” you don’t know what you don’t know ” is relevant in this case. I’ll just leave it at that.
Mac
Thanx Petra,
So subs are around $3-400 pmth (non-rural) and we can upload to REA and Domain at no extra cost. Does the service provide something other than listings management per agent/office for that cost?
We are looking to change from our existing tech ‘uploaders’ to you (we don’t want to duplicate services and pay an extra $3-400 pmth for no significant additional listings exposure on REView but if ‘back-end’ services are comparable we would consider).
Re: “..pay per listing model for agencies who sell less than 18 properties per annum” – How much is this please? (average $ rather than per state is OK 🙂
Petra Sprekos
Hi Mac
Email me at [email protected] with your details and lets discuss. I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards
Petra Sprekos
vancouver island real estate
I think the acquisition of Myhome is a great venture for Realestateview. With Myhome’s reputation, I think they did a great job.
real estate website design
Wow, thats very interesting indeed.
Greg Vincent
Paul, whilst I’m privy to a lot of behind the scenes happenings within the real estate industry I fully appreciate that ‘I don’t know what I don’t know’. I learn something new everyday.
Please feel welcome to call me on my mobile 0410 526 901 if you’d like to elaborate further on your comment.
In relation to my comment,
Greg Vincent
Paul, I agree ‘I don’t know what I don’t know’. In this business I learn a new thing everyday. That’s what I love about it.
If you’d like to expand further on your comment please feel most welcome to call me on my mobile 0410 526 901.
With regards to my comment,
Sal Espro
To get back to ‘feet-on-the-ground’ basics, can anyone give me a simple reason why we would move from our listings management system (including multi-distribution and website) for much less than $350 per month! to REView?
(We’re not interested in the REView portal(s) as our standard memberships of REA and Domain are far and beyond more powerful and known by our clients).
A bit confused,
Sal
Vic
Hi Salespro
Feet on ground question….. would you list with Myhome if it were totally free with no strings attached?
Sal Espro
I thought MyHome was already free (?)
So, where’s the REView USP to answer my question ?