Just got a Tweet from REA about “Michael Says” Column. Not having come across Michael McNamara’s column before I went out in search of it and found it under the “Realestate Resources” section.

Here we have a defacto blogs in this new section but there are a number of problems still with it:

No comments allowed on these articles.. hence they are columns, not blogs.

There are RSS Feeds for them, but for many of the pages they are at the bottom.

These “Real Estate Resources” pages all specifically promote the blogs inviting users to “Have your say on our blog. Have you got something to say – join our community of bloggers” . The problem is these are now effectively shutdown. These blog pages are in the left hand menu and are therefore on every single page served up by realestate.com.au

It really is a case of mixed messages from the realestate.com.au team.

At the time it was touted as the testing site for new technology.

I think the fee is also waived for certain franchise and cooperative groups as well.

It does seem strange for REA to charge for XML uploads, when the only feed they will accept is REA XML 1 format. And that is from an ‘REA Certified Multiloader’.

Here is the full document http://www.realestate.com.au/SLAs/XMLAgentUploadServiceLevelAgreement.pdf

I cannot see REA removing this nice little money earner any time soon, they are going for 50% revenue growth this year!

I think it depends upon who your uploader is from what I can gather from those who are charged and those who are not. We use Portplus to upload our properties and there is no XML fee involved.

I think the charge is for the smaller uploaders such as the one you must be using. I have to agree with you that it appears like a gouge, at least now days.

I believe that it was instigated to cover the support load in the early days when xml feeds where not that common. Agents that did have websites had them with a range of different options, often the corner web designer. The amount of people wanting to upload to REA that had only 1 or 2 real estate clients was probably quite a lot. Of course in recent years a few major companies have specialised in this and they seem to be exempt from the fee because they represent so many clients in one connection and they know what they are doing.

I reckon it would have had to have been frustrating to had their support team handhold web designers who wanted to upload their clients properties up to REA and the fee probably represented this. But these days xml feeds should not be that difficult and its the data providers responsibility to get it right and working.

I dont see why it would still be a valid charge in 2009

Sal

Can you confirm whether it still costs you $25 pmth to ‘upload’ your listings to REA please? (i.e. Using a single-key mechanism from your own management system provider).

This seems like a gouge when Domain hasn’t ever charged it!

Thx,
Sal

Maybe someone should tell REA that their servers are down again, because if they are all functioning they then have a serious communication problem with the marketplace. But there again they already know that because that explains the advertising campaigns! Just that this time it is way too late as we are receiving basically the same ratios too from Domain over REA.

It should come as no great surprise as Domain have been out initiating them for some years now which would explain the current REA crisis.