Let me jump right in here and answer these questions. NZ is unique I think in the world in having in the realestate.co.nz website an industry owned site that is the leading specialist real estate website in the country.

Certainly we do not pull the massive audience that Trade Me attract – but then trade me is part of the NZ DNA – it is the largest website in NZ – offering everything from cars to guns to iPods, to secondhand clothes, in the midst of all of this is the listing of property.

What we have done with realestate.co.nz over the past 2 years is built a great website that protects and supports this industry from the aggressive media ambitions of the likes of Fairfax (who owns Trade Me) as they endeavour to safeguard their advertising relationship with the real estate industry as print become less relevant and attractive to the industry.

The real estate industry has supported us over these years as we have held around 90% of all offices as subscribers. This has meant that the site is the most comprehensive website in NZ for real estate listings – 113,000 today far in excess of any other site.

As to fees – we have always charged a totally transparent subscription – every office pays $200 per month. No discounts – just great service. We have built our consumer traffic from 170,000 to 270,000 unique browsers in the past 2 years far ahead of the industry growth. Our business model and principle is to make a profit – we are a commercial company but servicing and supporting our customers comes first and that is why we have never increased fees, we seek to build our business through added value services and advertising.

As a final comment and as reflection of the transparent manner in which we operate the website and as a demonstration of this just read the Unconditional blog, the terms of this alliance recognise the value we will gain, but also the value to REA Group – this is a marketing opportunity and therefore we have constructed a commercial agreement – naturally the terms of which are confidential, having said that we recognise the value the investment in such relevant and qualified traffic that we will receive from the REA Group sites.