Rent.com.au is consolidating its position as Australia’s #1 rental property website, indicating in a December press release they have achieved 300% growth in the number of agency listings on their website since February 2011. They also indicate their portal has over 40,000 residential and holiday rentals now being listed by agencies across the country. In [...]
Ryan O'Grady
Contributing Editor
Ryan has been involved in the real estate industry for a number of years. During this time he has operated web based real estate businesses along with provided consulting to the real estate software development industry.
Ryan operates Agentpoint.com.au and is actively involved with the design and development of real estate systems, software and web sites in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
Recent blog posts written by Ryan O'Grady
Fairfax buys in to “The Weekly Review”
Fairfax Media yesterday announced they have entered into an agreement to merge Fairfax Community Newspapers in Victoria with Metro Media Publishing (owner of the The Weekly Review). Under the agreement Fairfax will contribute assets along with 35 million, in return obtaining 50% interest and voting rights in MMP. The Weekly Review is a free weekly [...]
Posted In Marketing, Newspapers
Another successful niche portal – Farmbuy.com
I firmly believe that niche real estate portals can be successful and fill a gap which the major players Domain.com.au and Realestate.com.au don’t cater for. There is no better example than Farmbuy.com which targets a niche very relevant in Australia…rural properties. Farmbuy.com launched in October 2009, it has grown from approx 4,000 unique browsers in [...]
Minor updates to Realestate.com.au
I believe this afternoon around 5.00pm Realestate.com.au deployed some minor updates to their portal. It did not run smoothly though as ads across the site, homepage news, info and other widgets including “what the locals think” all could not be connected. And at one stage the portal went down for a few minutes and was [...]
New look Realestateview.com.au
Late last month Realestateview undertook a small makeover to the residential section of their portal. What they’ve done is enhanced the usability of the site, provided extra content, improved the styling and overall, offer site browsers a better experience. The key homepage improvements include: Search – is now the main priority on the homepage allowing [...]
Upgrade your property on Realestate.com.au
Following on from the upgrade your listing feature launched by Thehomepage a few months ago, Realestate.com.au have added a similar feature to their listings. If you view any property on Realestate.com.au and click on the Show Page Visits link above the property images you will notice a lightbox popup, highlighting the Listing Performance for the property [...]
Onthehouse implements GUESSTIMATES
For the first time in Australia, onthehouse.com.au has just released their automated valuation estimate solution on almost every property within Australia called ‘Guesstimates’. ‘Guesstimates’ are calculated using the Residex valuation technology, and are provided to consumers for free, along with other detailed and analytic information about properties in Australia. CEO and Managing Director, Michael Fredericks [...]
The ACT Portal Market
The ACT Portal market is a little different to others across Australia in that neither Domain nor Realestate.com.au hold the number 1 portal spot. This claim is owned by Allhomes.com.au an independent ACT based company. What Allhomes have managed to do is cement the Allhomes brand into the minds of real estate agents and property [...]
SEEK Commercial where businesses are for sale
SEEK Commercial is a business portal showcasing businesses and franchises for sale across Australia and is owned and operated by SEEK the largest job portal in Australia. A few stats I found from back in July: SEEK Commercial holds #1 position for Google search term “business for sale” Potential buyers spend an average of 10 [...]
Viewproperty.com.au the new industry portal
Viewproperty.com.au aim to be a new “industry-owned” real estate portal designed to provide agents with an affordable alternative to the current offerings of Domain and Realestate.com.au. Apparently, the site is the result of 14 months planning and preparation by a group of Australian real estate agents and IT developers. View Property Australia CEO Ross Bulman [...]
Domain’s real estate directory
Early last month Domain launched their real estate directory by adding an additional ”Directory” tab to their main navigation. The directory allows site users to browse for a variety of real estate industry service providers, viewing their profiles and contacting those they’re interested in. The directory is powered by another Fairfax owned company, OMG a [...]
Realestateview moves in front of Domain in Google
Over the last week it appears Realestateview has launched itself up the Google search results for the term “real estate” now ranking number 2 behind Realestate.com.au. Domain which was number 2 has now been pushed down to the 4th result below PropertyNow.com.au This is quite alarming for Domain and they would surely be seeking answers [...]
Are you really investing in your real estate website?
Unbeknown to most real estate principals when they contract a web development company to build them a new website, they are not actually purchasing a website but rather locking themselves into a lease agreement for a site. Almost in all cases, the IP for the site (technology, code and even web design) belongs to the [...]
Fairfax to sell part of Trade Me
On Friday Fairfax announced plans to sell via an Initial Public Offering (on the NZX) between 30 to 35% of Trade Me – New Zealands largest online auctions and classifieds business. Fairfax is yet to indicate the proposed time for the float but said the funds are to be used to repay debt and increase [...]
Posted In New Zealand, Portals
