In their latest press release, Realestate.com.au have just announced some enhancements to their mobile site…

Henry Ruiz, General Manager Consumer Marketing for realestate.com.au indicated the new mobile website features will allow obsessed property hunters to access important property information, at the touch of a button.

“Given the heightened activity in the property market realestate.com.au’s enhanced mobile site means property seekers can now access open for inspection and auction times in chronological order while on the go, so they can maximise the time spent on the property hunt,” he said.

“The site even allows house hunters to save notes on properties to their mobile and then access that information via their myrealestate account from their computer later on,” said Henry.

Since launching the mobile website in early 2009, realestate.com.au has experienced significant growth in traffic, up by 213 per cent⁽²⁾ during a 12 month period.

“We have had a phenomenal response since launching to market last year with a high proportion (73.6 per cent) ⁽³⁾ of our users accessing the mobile website site via an iPhone handset,” said Henry.

“Our data indicates consumers using our mobile site prefer to call an agent directly from their mobile rather than sending an email. In fact 71.3 per cent⁽⁴⁾ clicked to call an agent directly, reinforcing the high level of engagement and immediacy in response wanted by property hunters,” he said.

Other benefits of the mobile site include the new find an agent feature and ability to share property information via popular social networking channels such as Facebook, MySpace, Delicious and Twitter.

It will be interesting to see how popular the enhanced REA mobile website will be with users.

Mobile visitor traffic is only going to keep increasing as more and more people become used to using their phone for browsing the web.

This upgrade also coincides with Commonwealth Bank’s announcement to provide a mobile solution via CBA Combine Realestate.com.au Data into iPhone Augmented Reality Solution as reported here on Business2 last week by Glenn Batten.

The statistics for the Press Release were based upon:-

(1)     20 per cent of people indicated the ability to view properties via a mobile can help manage the mania of inspecting properties without getting stressed. Source: Independent online survey conducted by Longergan Research of 1,028 respondents for realestate.com.au, March 2010

(2)     213 per cent growth in unique visitors during a 12 month period from April 2009 to March 2010 Source: Omniture Site Catalyst

(3)     73.6 per cent of unique visitors to the realestate.com.au mobile site came from iPhone handsets. Source: Omniture Site Catalyst

(4)     This is based on total leads sent to agents by mobile users. 71.3 per cent of unique visitors clicked to call an agent directly via the realestate.com.au mobile website, rather than those who emailed (28.7 per cent) an agent during the month of March. Source: Omniture Site Catalyst

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Move the phone around to locate a property

Augmented Reality is when you combine a live view with a computer generated view in real time. The concept itself will not really be all the new to anybody because you have seen it in the movies and video games for years.

The processing power of handsets has risen dramatically and 1ghz is the current sweet spot. That processing power allows modern smartphones to offer augmented reality in the palm of your hand and real estate is one of those ideal applications for the technology.

The Commonwealth Bank has released what they are claiming as Australia’s first Augmented Reality using data from Realestate.com.au and RPData.com.au.

I am not one to post whole press releases so you can read it in full here although be warned it makes the same tired old claims befitting any technology launch. In one sentence they squeeze “taken to a new level” and a “revolution” with the following paragraph:

“The new iPhone application will take property search to a new level, revolutionising the way home buyers search for a home allowing them to make smarter property decisions with virtual reality insight in to any Australian home anywhere, anytime.”

One of these days somebody will put out a release thats says, “hey what we are about to launch is not new, some others beat us to it but we reckon its cool and that our version is heaps better and we hope you like it”.

We first discussed Augmented Reality back in June last year when the Layar program was released which is now available for Android and the iPhone. Layar allowed third parties to easily creating an AR solution by providing “layers” of data that could be accessed through the program. Using Layar there have been other AR solutions serving up Australian real estate but because of their data sources they have only ever offered a fraction of the available properties.

Property found! Click on the screen for more information

The CBA’s solution will be the first dedicated application for the task and this means it can bring a functionality to the handset that a Layar solution cannot. Of course access to the realestate.com.au listing data to drive the site means it only rival for sheer coverage is realestate.com.au’s own mobile site.

The application will initially be a strictly an iPhone application however an Android application is apparently on the banks radar for future development. I thought the use of the term quite entertaining because when you use an AR application it is very much like sweeping the area with your own personal radar to discover whats out there. In this case property information.

Smartphones use an internal gps and digital compass to know exactly where it is in the world at any given time. It can even tell which way it is tilted and where it is facing. It’s this ”awareness” of it’s exact location in 3 dimensional space that makes makes Augmented Reality possible.

The application will allow you to point your phone at any existing property currently for sale and it will overlay information on the property over the top such as price, bedrooms, bathrooms, car accommodation, photos and land size.

You can even use the application to search for property surrounding you location. Fire up the application and move your phone around and property for sale will flash up on the screen.

You will be able to access last sales information on all properties but it will be limited to a price range only unless it has been sold recently when the accurate sales details will be available. Consumers will of course be able to get the exact past sales details on any property for a fee thanks to the RPData connection.

View full property and information and photos in a few clicks

The program will be available in the Apple App Store sometime in June as they wait for Apple’s official approval.

I would have thought that this sort of solution would have been a better fit for realestate.com.au themselves but the Commonwealth Bank is obviously trying to leverage home loan leads by being right their in the consumers face during the research phase as they look for property.

As you would expect users can click to call a lender or complete a form to get a call from back from the Commonwealth Bank. The application will pull data live from the Realestate.com.au mobile site so I can only assume that it will still add to realestate.com.au property views which they certainly need right now.

Of course when a company release a media release before its actually available it gets a little hard to give a full and proper opinion but it looks the goods from the screenshots and the iPhone certainly has the power to pull it off. All you iPhone users will have to let me know what you think when it launches because I will have to wait till they get around to an Android version.

I reckon the application will be a hit with real estate agents and may get some of the realestate.com.au junkies away from their computer and back out into the community.

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Is real estate ready for Mobile Phone websites? If you are thinking of forking out 1000’s of dollars building a mobile phone website the following statistics may change your mind for now.

The following are some statistics for a Google Mobile Phone search on accommodation. These statistics are gathered from January 1, 2010 until April 29, 2010. I am using these statistics based on the search term Lorne Accommodation. As a comparison I will give the stats for the same search term when a browser searches via their computer.

Mobile Phone Statistics January 1 – April 29

• Mobile Phone – Search term (Lorne accommodation) 594 Impressions*
• Computer – Search term (Lorne accommodation) 68,044 Impressions*

* the amount of times browsers type in the search term

This is a massive difference in how a browser tries to find accommodation in this region.

Below are stats on a real estate agency based in southern Victoria. It shows the amount of visits dating from January 1, 2010 until April 28, 2010. The first row shows how many times people accessed the site using their mobile and the second row show how many visits via the browsers computer.

Real Estate Agent Website Analytics January 1 – April 29

• Mobile – 442 visits, 1770 page views, average time on site 3mins 24secs
• Computer - 19,904 visits, 116,768 page views, average time on site 4mins 26secs

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Firstly, I have to confess that I’m in love with the Apple brand. The iPod is one of the best consumer inventions in memory and, from a person that used to feel pretty cool in my teens using a yellow, waterproof Sony Walkman (yes, I pre-date the Sony “Disc”man) it’s amazing how quickly I became reliant on my iPod. I took it everywhere and looked forward to a morning run so I could use it.

As you can imagine, the iPhone blew my mind, and continues to amaze me almost every day. I break into a cold sweat if I forget my iPhone. The iPod and BlackBerry are now gathering dust in the spare room, waiting until I get around to putting them on eBay.

I’m now seriously considering buying a MAC for home. Why? I have no idea. As a marketer I’ve just been sucked into the vortex, and I just want one. Every time I switch on my PC at home I’m secretly hoping that it’s broken so I can justify the new purchase to my fiancée (who I know secretly wants one as well).

So, to the eagerly awaited Australian launch of the iPad. Apple’s website is positioning this product as “A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.” I’m a little sceptical.

Really good marketers are masters at finding a gap in a market and creating a product or a service that exploits that gap and fills the void. Exceptional marketers take that one step further and develop a product or service to fill a void that doesn’t even exist, and then create the gap via clever marketing. Before you know it, nobody can understand how they lived without what you’ve invented.

However, in launching the iPad I wonder if Apple has just got a little carried away. As one of the most powerful brands on the planet are they forcing a product onto us that we just don’t need at all?
Apple is telling us that you can conveniently; surf the web, watch videos, download and use apps, flick through photos, manage your diary and emails. All of these things you can do on your MacBook and iPhone. I struggle to see why you would buy this product if you already have the iPhone, and particularly if you also own a MacBook (Apple speak for a laptop).

Will this product revolutionise the way that we consume information and, in turn, how we do business in the real estate sector?

Here are some ideas on how the product “could” be used:

1. Listing Presentations. Laptops can be a little intimidating in the lounge room, some agents suggest that they can create a barrier between the prospective vendor and the agent. Maybe a touch screen tablet will soften that a little.

2. Property Searches. Some of our offices have MACS in reception, enabling the public to drop in and browse our website. The novelty of using iPads could work well.

3. Capturing Information at Open Homes. With the right software (that plugs directly into you database) it would be pretty handy to record not just buyer details, but buyer feedback on an iPad during open homes.

I’m still a sceptic, but I’ll let you know when I’ve bought one (which will probably be early May by the way).

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Will the recent launch of the Apple iPad mean the end of the Listing Presentation Folder or FlipChart style presentation? Will we see agents showing off their listings via the iPad? Or perhaps they’ll be using it to watch real estate training sessions or live streamed sales meetings? Either way, could it be a Game Changer? Read the rest of this article »

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