Realestate.com.au to buy Propertylook?
by Peter Ricci, on 15th March, 2006 • 7 Comments
After getting off to one of the worst starts for any portal (bar justlisted), it seems Propertylook owners may be ready to cash in with Realestate.com.au doing due diligence and looking to purchase the commercial portal. Propertylook is majority owned by some of the major commercial franchise agencies in Australia ( read CB Richard Ellis, Colliers International, Jones Lang LaSalle and Knight Frank).
I must say - I am a little surprised actually, as I thought a major target for www.realestate.com.au would have been www.commercialrealestate.com.au as it has many more visitors, more listings and much more diversity in its range of member agencies. Who knows, they may as well buy that as well.
Commercial agents are a little behind residential agents in embracing the Internet but it seems to be the way things are going. This does however open up the possibility of the Fairfax owned Domain.com.au or maybe even Just Listed (Sensis) now purchasing Commercialrealestate.com.au.
I would put my money on Domain doing the deal, but Sensis (Just Listed) could come from left field and snap them up ahead of a national launch.
After reading the article in the Financial Review (Fairfax can not help but have a dig at their rival) I just wondered where all this is heading? With new cross-media ownership laws being relaxed maybe News Limited will buy the FPC Courier Group, or even Rural Press. WIN TV or maybe Nine, 10 or 7? They have enough cash to buy the lot of them!
I am sure if the right price came along the current government would sell SBS and throw in ABC for free.
So in my humble opinion, www.realestate.com.au will continue to grow and in less than a year we will have two big portals, www.domain.com.au and www.realestate.com.au (way bigger) for both commercial and residential listings.
But how much longer will Sensis sit idly by with Just Listed?
Comments
Well they just seem to be trying ot have a monopoly now, this will just mean higher prices every year from agents.
Adam Shaw
16th Mar, 2006
Problem is this is where we get most of our listigns, so we dont really have a choice, I wonder when something else will come along and challenge them.
Celia M
16th Mar, 2006
Peter
In your article, you said that “commercialrealestate.com.au … has many more visitors”. This is not correct.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, who audits all three sites, the unique browsers (visitors) to each of the 3 sites in February were:
130,882 realcommercial.com.au
50,653 propertylook.com.au
39,005 commercialrealestate.com.au
As you can see, propertylook at around 25% more visitors than commercialrealestate.
Also, one of the reasons that we are in discussions to purchase propertylook is that it is clearly complementary with www.realcommercial.com.au. Propertylook is strong at the top end of the market while realcommercial.com.au has 600+ customers at the mid to lower range of the market.
Simon Baker - CEO realestate.com.au
16th Mar, 2006
Adam
I would like to comment on your statement that “this will just mean higher prices every year for agents”.
www.realestate.com.au has not been and does not intend to increase subscription prices at unreasonable rates.
In 2001, a standard subscription in NSW on www.realestate.com.au cost the agent $242 per month. Today (2006) the same subscription would cost the agent $379. That is a growth rate of only 8% per annum.
In the same period, the number of Australian visitors (unique browsers) to www.realestate.com.au has increased from 190k in January 2001 to 2.5 million in January 2006. This is a whopping 68% growth per annum.
The commitment www.realestate.com.au and www.realcommercial.com.au has to its customers is to continue to keep the entry level advertising prices well within reach of all agents. That is why you will continue to see only relatively small annual price increases in our subscription products.
Simon Baker - CEO realestate.com.au
16th Mar, 2006
Again it looks as though my figures were wrong, I apologise for this error. The other claims such as diversity, I stand by.
peter
16th Mar, 2006
I’m just wondering how long it will be before we see realestate.com.au take up a per listing fee structure.
Paul
17th Mar, 2006
Paul. I dont think this wiull be on the agenda for some time, I have taken this up before and have been assured that this is not the case. However any site is free to make decisions on their fee model. The only reason they would do this is to be either fairer or to make some more money, however their growth strategy is pretty good as it stands, so i dont see it happenning anytime soon.
Regards Peter
peter
17th Mar, 2006