Two of the country’s most respected newspapers, The Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) have come together to jointly promote the Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Auction Centre.
The Auction Centre was first launched by the SMH early last year. In 2011, 263 commercial properties were listed for auction through the centre at a value of over $250,000 million (disclosed figures).
Nic Cola, CEO of Fairfax Marketplaces said,
“The Auction Centre’s first year of operation was highly successful. The partnership that has been formed with the Financial Review will help this centre gain an even greater presence within the commercial real estate industry. It will also add another level of credibility as a direct result of the Financial Review’s reputation and expertise within the business and property community.”
“This year we want to position the Auction Centre as the place in Sydney to conduct commercial real estate transactions.”
“We are looking forward to continuing to bring all of Fairfax’s commercial real estate assets together including newspapers, online and the Auction Centre to provide enhanced opportunities for our clients. This is a unique proposition for the market within the commercial space,” he added.
Given the SMH and AFR are the main print publications for commercial real estate in Sydney this move showcases the reach and marketing strength of the Fairfax network. It will be interesting to see whether there will be any further cross marketing or even consolidation between the SMH and AFR brands.
6 Comments
Glenn Rogers
It’s a good move and not before time, I was disappointed that there wasn’t immediate integration between CRE and Fairfax business publications iimmediately after the acquisition.
Fairfax need to move faster and integrate 100% with their print assets..
Print is the one big advantage they have over Realestate.com.au and it’s a huge advantage so why wasn’t this done years ago ?
As I understand it Realcommercial have taken a lead over CRE which never should have happened.
Ryan O'Grady
Lets see what happens when those extended Agreements expire with the big 3.
Glenn Rogers
The big 3 are only denying their clients the best advertising options by staying out of CRE, putting their own interests before their clients.
vic Del Vecchio
So Glenn, are you saying that with realcommercial now holding down number 1 spot, that the big three decision is justified or not justified. It would seem to me that they are now with the strength.
Glenn Rogers
Vic, there are only 2 main commercial sites in Australia, if I was a client of any agent who told me they couldn’t list me on both of them I would go elsewhere.
The big 3 went with Realcommercial exclusively because it was part of the deal with the sale of PropertyLook.
I guess REA thought they had a monopoly of some sort but the fact is most commercial and industrial real estate is handled by the hundreds of other agents apart from the big 3 so it was a misguided judgment in my opinion.
I think both REA and Fairfax at the time thought they would be ahead of the pack if they had the big 3 but they forgot about the hundreds of others who are collectively much more important, in fact as an agent I might prefer not to be on a site that the big 3 were dominating as PropertyLook discovered.
vic Del Vecchio
Fair call Glenn.