Charlie Gunningham is in San Francisco for Real Estate Connect and hopefully he will be able to write a great post on what is happening over there when he gets back.
In the meantime he and his team have been very busy little girls & boys and they have just released a new website called West Real Estate, which is a partnership between the REIWA and The West Australian Newspapers Group and will be cross promoted by both on an ongoing basis.
This will probably be the first of a slew of real estate institutes going it alone and by forming a partnership with the Western Australia’s largest newspaper group it will no doubt get off the ground running nicely.
All content is powered by REIWA, so current members and subscribers should see all of their listings on the site immediately.
Will it increase the exposure for members listings over the already popular REIWA? I have been a vocal critic of institutes over the years, but REIWA has probably been the only shining light amongst them. I hope this comes at no extra costs and hopefully Charlie can shed some light on who owns what shares of this site and if there will be any future costs to agent members?
16 Comments
Charlie
Just to clarify those points for you, the site is FREE for all reiwa.com subscribers, and all their listings will go on westrealestate automatically. The site is owned by The West, powered by reiwa.com.
Peter Ricci
Thanks Charlie, who owns The West? Will this site be free for all time?
Peter Ricci
Sorry to be a pain, but this site is biased for Agents, not portals or media companies 🙂
Charlie
Yes free site for all time; all subscribers to reiwa.com get on westrealestate.com.au for free. And yes, will love to post on some of the amazing things I have seen at Real Estate Connect this year. My head is still spinning 🙂
Vic
This is a great intiative Charlie. Partnering with an independent print media makes sense.
Three things that comes to mind are:
1. whether there are safegaurds in place to ensure that the new site does not eventually become the REA of the West. Let’s just say that the site goes so well that it becomes the main site for visitors and that REIWA slips away. Then agents decide to upload direct to West Real Estate. REIWA loses control??
Would this worry you?
2. REIWA powers the new site- does this also include REIWA managing the site?
3. where does Aussie homes sit in all this?
Charlie
All good questions – you can imagine the thought and discussions that have gone into this.
The only uploading to the site is via reiwa.com – you upload there to be on the site. Put it another way, all reiwa.com subscribers get on the site automatically by loading up to reiwa.com.
aussiehome.com continues to be a separate site (much like westrealestate.com.au) and will soon also be powered by reiwa.com listings – aussiehome subscribers have enjoyed a CUT in their monthly subscription rate but continue to enjoy the backend services they’ve had for 12 years, plus a brand new CRM we have built … but that’s another story 🙂
Martin Crampton
How do these sites rank visitor-wise to Realestate.com.au & Domain? And does Google still get the most search ‘starts’?
Shane Dale
Good work Charlie and REIWA
As we can all agree the amazing part of this site is actually getting the parties to agree and produce a working result. By comparison with that huge political task – the technology is relatively easy!
Just curious what the benefit is for the paper? Do they monetise the ad space on the site or some other similar revenue winner for them ( which I think is only fair -to make it a true win – win situation)?
Peg
Hi everyone, remember me? Yes, it’s Peg. Remember my posts earlier in the year where I promised to disappear for a while until it all got sorted – the new competitor? Not out of Vic or NSW but yes, WA. Now let’s see what they do next.
Trevor
Peter,
The West is owned by Seven West Media, also owners of the Seven Network. They also own Pacific magazines and a large number of regional newspapers in WA (pretty much all the ones that Fairfax doesn’t own) and some regional radio licences. They own 50% of Yahoo7 also.
Sal Espro
Hahaha The West is certainly not independent, Vic! I’d be interested in Martin Crampton’s request too. i.e. Where do these sites rank visitor-wise compared to Realestate.com.au, Domain and Google, Charlie (?) Otherwise, well done to you as a businessman but in reality where’s the value to vendors, buyers and agents?
Ryan O'Grady
Ben Hurley is at it again http://www.business2.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/AFRWAOnlineAUG11.pdf makes some good points.
Sal Espro
Thx Ryan. So, REIWA reckons they get 40% of REA’s traffic but cost around 50% – I would want it to cost a lot less! So, on those figures why as an agent would I not want to use REA then? (Especially if as the NSW agents tell me, my own website can also get on Google which I assume is still the market leader?).
Vic
Salespro- the west is independent of REIWA as Murdoch papers are NOT independent of REA and Fairfax are NOT independent of Domain 🙂
Charlie
reiwa.com’s subscription is about one third of REA’s actually (so I’ds say cost per lead is better on reiwa); our traffic is growing faster in WA; with WRE subscribing agents now get extra exposure at no cost, and the public get another site to view the listings on if they wish.
… all true, but you knew I’d say that 🙂
Spectator
Big mistake REIWA. If you were growing, you should have backed yourself to keep growing i.e. “If it aint broke, don’t fix it.” Good luck though, you’ll need it.