I’m talking to you. Yes, you. The person who thinks you will start an Australian real estate portal that will shoot right past domain, dethrone realestate.com.au and become the new number one. Or, maybe you’re an agent who for some reason (perhaps because you have to send them a check every month?) doesn’t like realestate.com.au [...]
Dave Platter
Contributor
Dave does PR in real estate and technology.
Recent blog posts written by Dave Platter
New China Real Estate Portal
Listen. I’m not really sure how to say this. There’s something I think you need to know, but it involves a marketing client of mine — and I don’t want to seem like I am just spruiking my clients. So, if you don’t want to hear about a new portal that helps Australian agents and developers reach [...]
A new way to count traffic, but No. 1 still means No. 1
If realestate.com.au were to report having more than 6,500 users per month, and then started reporting that –actually– they only had about 2,700 users, you might think they had been lying the first time around. Well, realestate.com.au is in just that position right now. But, they weren’t lying. The old, larger number refers to “unique browsers”, [...]
Why you think advertising costs too much, and why it doesn’t
During my time at realestate.com.au, I saw that the company has lots of happy customers (no snide remarks, please). But, it also has trouble convincing some agents that they should pay more over time for online real estate advertising. In this post I uncover the secret cause of that trouble and ask for your ideas [...]
Real estate advertising gone wrong!
In the light-hearted spirit of the holidays, I submit these real estate classifieds ads, which are apparently from the US. (Editor Note: I should have posted this earlier, but it is still pretty funny) Talk about a motivated seller! Hard to heat and cool? If that’s the best you can say about it… All of [...]
Posted In Newspapers, Soapbox
Some changes at HubOnline from realestate.com.au
My apologies for not posting in some time. Today, I do have some news to share. Rather than make business2 readers wait until this seeps out publicly, I’m going to give you a heads up on two things that are happening at realestate.com.au today. I’m sorry that I probably won’t be able to participate in [...]
Inside the mind of a road warrior, a real estate agent who replaced her office with technology
One of the comments on my recent post about virtual agents was from Teena Andrews, an agent with Coldwell Banker Property Direct in Brisbane. Teena is a Road Warrior who almost never sets foot into her agency’s actual office. In this interview, she tells us more about being an agent who has dispensed with the [...]
Posted In Interviews
No people in real estate photos, please!
Real estate agents in Australia take a lot of flack for the quality of the listings photos they upload to portals like realestate.com.au. And it is probably true that many photos could have been in slightly better focus. However, today, I think all Australian real estate agents should give themselves a firm pat on the [...]
Posted In Soapbox
Marketing Real Estate: How much $ is enough?
How do you know how much to spend marketing real estate? Some interesting survey data that just became available should be of help. A video marketing company in the US surveyed 1,304 real estate agents to see how much they spent. There isn’t a lot of info here, but what there is is gold. One [...]
Posted In Marketing, Newspapers
New iPhone will be powerful and fun real estate platform–see the video now
I’ve written about the iPhone on this blog before, but the thing just keeps getting better. The new model released this week–a faster 3G model at about half the price of the original model–makes me even more clear that this device will transform real estate. What has to happen for the iPhone to bring workable [...]
Posted In Technology, What's New
The Rise of the Virtual Real Estate Agent
In the comments to my 30 May 2008 post on the rise of the American virtual real estate agent, there was plenty of confusion about what exactly a virtual agent is. The details of the settlement of the lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors also created lots of confusion. A friend just pointed me [...]
Posted In What's New
Victory for virtual agents in US could lead to threat to traditional agents in Australia
The settlement of a lawsuit this week threatens to have a major impact on the way agents work in the future–to the possible detriment of large numbers of people in the industry today. The lawsuit is between the US Department of Justice and the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The low down is that traditional [...]
Posted In Soapbox
An expert’s tips on real estate podcasting
I recently posted about how real estate agents can use podcasts to turn their entire town into a referral network. But I thought some agents might still be intimidated by the idea of getting together their own real estate podcast. So, I asked journalist and podcaster Mark Jones to share some tips with Business2.com.au. Q. [...]
