I’ve been advised (by a WA source) that Joondalup based Real Estate WA (a real estate newspaper in Perth’s northern suburbs) are closing their doors after 15 years business. In a recent shareholder meeting last Friday, it was decided the company would be shut down immediately.
The paper was founded in 1997 by real estate agents in an effort to break the monopoly of the West Australian newspaper. After a few years, they managed to get a good grounding in their area with their ads costing about 2/3rds of West ads. They attempted to launch in the southern and also eastern suburbs of Perth but in both instances could not gain traction. In 2008 they upped their online presence with their site and portal, and then in 2011 had the idea to go national with ViewProperty.com.au
There was much hype by ViewProperty.com.au in relation to how they were the new industry portal who would change the online portal space in Australia. Business2 covered their release here Viewproperty.com.au the new industry portal and at the time we were skeptical about their intentions and in particular who their supporters were.
Is this further indication that print is dying or is this simply a case of a small print publication over extending themselves? What it definitely highlights, is that throwing the words “industry owned” in the front of a portal won’t guarantee membership from real estate agents. Something REIWA and REIV would know all about.
1 Comment
vic Del Vecchio
Sad to see this happen. But as you say Ryan do not mislead with “Industry owned”. Most of the potential listing agents can see through this, particularly the big franchises, who hold most of the listings.
Viewproperty was doomed to fail from the start, undercapitalized and overly ambitious.