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 buyers from China, just stop reading right now. If you read on, and still feel like I put my interests ahead of your interests as a reader, please abuse me in the comments section.

I’ll just talk about the four things that I think are most important for readers of Business2.com.au:

1. First, this news is not relevant to everyone. Advertising to buyers from China is not for every agent. The reason Juwai.com thinks that plenty of Australian agents will want to advertise on their portal is that Chinese buyers make up the fastest-growing buyer group in Australia at the moment. They spent more than $1 billion dollars in 2010 on Australia homes, and probably about $2.9 billion in 2011 — according to the best estimates Juwai.com has been able to make. (This data is not easily to track.)
2. Second, how much does it cost? For now it is free, if you go to juwai.com/advertise. Later, for a single property it will be $50 per month, for 10 properties it’s $100 per month, for up to 250 properties it’s $250 per month. (These are US dollar amounts, which amounts to nearly the same thing in Australian dollars.) Through deals with Thehomepage.com.au and Millionplus.com.au there already tens of thousands of Australian listings on Juwai.com. (In addition to more than a million listings from the US, UK and other countries.)
3. Third, how does it work? Like any portal, this new one has 2 heads: one that talks to the customer and one that talks to the agent. In this case, however, the two heads speak two different languages. The head facing the customer speaks Chinese and is full of all the best portal stuff for the Chinese buyer, like buying guides, news and data, social media tools, etc.
   The other head, facing the agent, speaks English. It works just like the agent admin section on just about any real estate portal you have ever used. And it also translates leads for you, and if you want can translate documents, emails, offers, etc. into English or Chinese.
4. The fourth thing is that this portal operates a call centre for Chinese customers. I found it interesting that the Chinese language is so difficult to type that — instead of sending an e-mail inquiry — people can be more likely to pick up the phone and dial a handful of digits. The call centre answers their questions, and also pre-qualifies leads for agents.

I’ll leave you with a few links to stories that I found in the media about Chinese buyers in Australia. Also, I’ll leave you with my apologies that this post is not in rhyme. (If you have no idea why I just said that, see the World’s First Rhyming Social Media Blog Post.)

• PropetyObserver.com.au: Asian buyers vital to Australian property market: Morry Schwartz
• Real Estate Business:  Mandarin listings a must to reach lucrative Chinese
• The Australian: Chinese buyers underpin housing prices
• Sydney Morning Herald: Chinese millions – and a loophole – keep luxury home market buoyant
• China Daily: Australia is now a hot real estate market for Chinese investors

Though this won’t be cheap, as to be considered as a potential TLD purchaser you must lay down a USD185,000 deposit and then pay an annual renewal fee of USD25,000. This does sound like a lot of money but when you think of the potential revenue (through the sale of domain names) then it could be a very good investment.

If we look at real estate the most searched term in our industry then .realestate will be the most highly prized TLD. Whoever succeeds in purchasing .realestate will then be able to sell domain names like www.australia.realestate, www.sydney.realestate, www.london.realestate, www.cheap.realestate, www.beach.realestate, www.luxury.realestate and so on. The potential revenues are extraordinary but this will come at a cost, as these domains are likely to be auctioned to the highest bidder. Meaning the likes or REA and Domain are tiny fish in a worldwide pool of potential purchasers for .realestate.

So how significant will the introduction of TLDs like www.anything.realestate or www.anything.properties be to the real estate industry? Some analyst suggest that people’s reliance on search engines will be diminished as instead of typing in “Sydney real estate” into google they can go to www.sydney.realestate. The same could be said for real estate portals as why would you go to REA or Domain to look for real estate in Sydney when you can simply go to www.sydney.realestate. In theory this could well be the case but in practice this does not always happen. It relies on the purchaser of these domains to hold all the content in that area/type eg Sydney. If all available property in Sydney does not appear on www.sydney.realestate then property seekers will have no choice but to continue using Realestate.com.au and Domain where they’re assured the largest representation of Sydney real estate will appear.

One thing is certain though. Those real estate agencies who get in first and purchase their suburb.realestate will have a significant advantage over their competitors, as these domains will certainly drive web traffic to their business.

The new Shopping Application Programming Interfaces ( API’s) have two main components : Content and Search. As part of this launch, we’re are (sic) also sunsetting the Base API and replacing it with these new shopping API’s.

Sunsetting the Base API ! Not only sunsetting but…

We are deprecating the Base API and will fully decommission it on June 1, 2011.

And they go on to say…

There are a few non-shopping data types that won’t be supported with new Shopping APIs, such as jobs, real estate, events, and activities. We hope this won’t cause too much disruption, …

So, is this it Google and Real Estate ( other than being a search engine) ?

Will they still be accepting Real Estate feeds in to Base but not allowing them out?

Have they decided Real Estate is a white elephant from within, or has there been some outside pressure applied?

There are so many questions to ask…

I guess it’s up to Google, they way they want to run their business, and we just accept their conclusions, but I do find it interesting they have chosen to not pursue two highly active markets such as Jobs and Real Estate.

The strange thing is though,  recently out of the blue was a new look Google Real Estate look which like the Loch Ness Monster appeared in my browser and within hours was gone again. It distinctively showed a a cleaner look and gave me the impression that they were about to get more serious with Real Estate.

and then it was gone…but i did get a photo !

Was is it a bluff?

Are they serious?

What do you think?

Leaving aside the fact that only a simpleton would think they were owned by the same company and also leaving aside your impressions of the services or practices of Realestate1.com.au this lawsuit stinks – stinks bad, real bad (Elaine – Seinfeld)

IP Australia clarified this position and realestate.com.au wanted to reassure everyone that they were all soft and cuddly on this issue. What is at stake here is anyones use of the word realestate in their domain name across Australia.

Realestate.com.au under our laws definitely has a right to protect its brand – even though I think (personal opinion) every single instance of trademarks and copyright laws only protects the powerful and as this TED.com video demonstrates that industries can still thrive without these protections.

However, unless this company acts in its delivery of services or in any manner as if it is in some way affiliated with REA this is just plain wrong and we all should defend the rights to have the common term realestate in any domain name we feel appropriate. We should not allow the will of the pen of realestate.com.au’s legal department to force us into defending the use of a word that is no one’s to won or defend.

Let us not forget that REA acquired this domain name when under MelbourneIT’s rules (they were the monopoly registrar back then) you were not allowed to register common names like this, but that didn’t stop News Ltd and other big organizations slipping through with domains like news.com.au. For everyday folks like us, it was impossible to register these common names.

If Realestate1.com.au have done something wrong then REA have their right to take action, but this sets down a frightening precedent for all of us.

Smells bad, real bad!

Google will overcome the teething problems with its real estate proposition and disrupt the business models of property portals across the world.

Every single property portal in the world is wary of the Google Real Estate presence over the past few years and every single portal is scared of the effect Google will have on both their visitor numbers and there revenues.

Over the past year I have read a lot of articles (from portals, their newspapers or individual shareholders) demonstrating how Google’s entry into the market place has not or will not effect either their visitor numbers/revenues. Well they would say that wouldn’t they!

Google’s Effect

It is true so far that Google’s effect has been minimal, however Google has never stated it’s intention to kill off or mame any of the leading portals in the world in a time limited period! In fact, Google is focusing on getting as many listings into their systems as possible, forming new partnerships with various entities to help them get their listings into Google and finally continually refining their systems to make it easier for people to find the property they are looking for, then shoot them off to the originators website of that listing for complete property information.

Once Google has these three elements close to perfect, they can then think about a mass marketing campaign through, yes you guessed it, the most powerful online marketing tool on the planet – the Google Search Engine!

The two big differences Google has that others who have failed before them do not – is time and money!

Google’s mantra is to “Don’t be Evil”. Think about this, who are they going to upset with a successful assault on the property market? In the USA MLS providers? Come one, hardly anyone thinks they serve any purpose other than hanging on to a business model that expired in the early 90′s. Fee based real estate portals? Just about every real estate agent in the world rates their fee based real estate portal only slightly north of Saddam Hussein.

The free listing portals may need to adjust their business models, but specialized search engines like www.estately.com would probably welcome the success of Google!

All in all a Google success would mean current successful businesses will have to adjust their business models, evolve into new offerings, improve their practices and innovate – after all, isn’t that what capitalism is all about?

Everyone is in a rush to judge Google on their immediate impact. Real estate is just another business Google is involved in and they will take their time before marketing the product globally. Just don’t expect any of the incumbents real estate portals (many owned by news organisations) to rush out with a headlines promoting their competition, like ‘Google having an impact, revenue and visitor numbers plunge for xxxx.com’ )

The incumbents will always find a light for their own real estate businesses whilst shedding darkness on their competitors. This is the toughest thing for Google in real estate – getting the free headlines they attract in different markets (search, telephony, Internet). With property they are playing against many of the largest media companies in each country, which means fewer free promotions for their real estate services!

Google is a publicly traded company, it is a profit machine and there is no bigger game globally online for revenue than real estate. To be the number one real estate destination worldwide for property listings would be worth anywhere from $3 – 5 billion in additional revenues for Google, they just don’t realize it yet.

This is not to say Google needs to improve what they are doing and needs to form new partnerships to do this – it does! One area they can improve upon is rewarding individual agents for feeding their listings directly to Google by giving them the referral . At the moment it seems a bit of a lottery as to who gets the referral when a user clicks on a listing to see the full information. It should go to the originator of that listing – the person who signed the vendor. Not some portal or directory. This should not be that difficult!

Google also needs to acquire a few tools in the long run. I do believe Google will acquire a listing system/engine and offer it for free for agents and web developers/portals to hook into. In full disclosure, this is the very business I operate (www.zooproperty.com). However the reason I think they need to do this is because it gives them some control over the cycle of a property from listing to sales/rentals to sales/rental history, it also allows for them to know who the listing originates from.

If Google launched an open system that allowed agents to manage their listings and then distribute them across a variety of platforms they would get 90% of independent agents on board within a year. Every single portal in the world would join up to get feeds from that system and web developers globally would rejoice in finally having a system they can play with. Google will also be able to integrate Google Adwords, Adsense and other tools directly to developers and agents.

Also, never underestimate the power of the open web developer, one only has to think of the success of the Firefox browser to showcase how powerful the common web developer has become. If you build something that helps the web developer, the marketing power of that alone is enough to propel a product into the spotlight.

If Google take their time and work with agents, developers, portals and listing systems they will have an impact, it will come down to how much they control as to their next move, however once they start seeing the revenues flow in you can be sure Google will expand their presence.

If you are a real estate agent, you need to get all of your listings to Google, talk to your web developer, for them to build this into their system (if they already haven’t) should only take a few days.

You need to do this anyway, invest the time and you will be rewarded.

Note: A Version of this article first appeared on Global Edge UK.

Why? Because not doing so will slowly end their dominance and when the decline occurs it will be so fast that no maneuvering will make a difference.

Some may argue that Google Real Estate has not made a difference as yet, but these people live in complete denial and it will only be a matter of time before visitor numbers begin declining and Google Real Estate begins its upward March.

Remember, Google only has to get comparative data to make a difference. Google also have a far greater capacity to let people know about it than all other real estate portals in the world combined.

Recently a number of videos have been produced that well and truly show how serious Google is about maps and real estate.

Finding a house on Google Real Estate Maps

Here is one to showcase real estate listings throughout Australia

Here is one on how to refine your real estate search on Google Real Estate.

Real Estate API’s
Realestate.com.au and domain.com.au must open their databases up to the general public to create a whole new wave of web and mobile applications.

I have been pushing API’s with these portals for over 2 years and yet we still have nothing. Maybe Realestate.com.au’s big announcement will include an API?

What can an API do?
As an example any website would be able to carry listings through this API, so community websites, industry websites, councils, agents, even business2.com.au would be able to carry listings, sales data etc. Portals do not need agents permission as agents have signed away all rights to the data when they join these sites.

Signing up should be simple and approval rapid and it should be accompanied by rapidly evolving documentation and examples.

Boon for portals
One other thing we will see is innovation across the board, even things we have not even thought of will take us by surprise, but the biggest boon will be for the portals. It will extend their listings and sales data reach and allow that data to be ingrained across 10′s of thousands of websites across Australia and the world.

Versions
There should be two versions of the API, the free version which carries 3rd parties adverts from the portals and is a little limited and then a paid version that carries no advertising and allows the user to do whatever they want with the data!

Flow on
The flow on effect of this will flow across the industries to jobs, cars and classifieds.

Will this happen?
Don’t hold your breath, large organisations are slow at moving on these opportunities, usually waiting until it is too late. We are fast approaching a time where I think realestate.com.au and domain.com.au will start going backwards unless they really innovate with API’s.

One only has to look at the music industry and the movie industry to see how stubborn incumbents completely ruin their own industries by not embracing and innovating.

REA have come under criticism in the past that the realestate.com.au website is more about selling 3rd party services than actually marketing real estate agents listings, so it will be interesting to see how much of the feedback they have received over the years gets put into place.

Given that REA are the leader, I am be expecting something special, no excuses, I mean the site has had some minor adjustments over years, but this is 2010 and I would expect nothing short of brilliance from this team after this period of time. I am sure the hype will build up and can’t wait to get a sneak peak and report back to all.

Here are some of the things i will be looking for:

Make the Home Page Customisable

If you want registrations and repeat customers, make it so I can fully customize the home page. I should be able to login and set what types of listings I am looking for. The home page should then become ‘my home page’, with relevant listings, sales data, advertising and real estate news and media from my areas. I should be able to login with my Google, Facebook accounts and I should be to set up watch lists for local properties, agents etc.

Agents Listings First

95% or more of realestate.com.au’s visitors would be people looking to buy, sell, rent or have their properties managed, so it beggars belief that so many real estate sites make it difficult to contact an agent on a listing page. This should be prominent at top left of listings page (where eyes first look) and not hidden away down the left or right side.

Give me what I search for

I don’t care if a listing is one year old or one day old, I want to get accurate results for what I search for. Today agents need to re-list properties (which can get you barred on REA) on some sites every ninety days, otherwise they are not found.

Agents are commissioned to sell a property for the vendor. It makes it hard to sell if it cannot be found, it is just so pathetic that only the first 200 listings are displayed, load and data cannot be the excuse, especially when there is so much junk thrown in the users face on each page.

3rd Party Advertising

REA should by now have realised that pop up ads are a pain in the proverbial, just give me non-intrusive, relevant advertising and I am happy. Surely by now they would have some control over their advertising market.

API

Yes this is 2010 and not one of the major portals has an API (Application Program Interface) That allows anyone to mash data up and create just about anything you could think of and many things we hadn’t. This is why Google is such a threat, to companies like REA and Domain – because it likes to share and makes billlions from it!

Comments

We should be able to make comments on a property, agents should be able to choose whether the comments and their responses are public. This would provide great information to other prospectives! It could also separate the productive hard working agents from the rest. Maybe some kind of comment/feedback all star agent.

What are you expecting to see?

Despite making it clear that it will take time, some industry heavies quickly began commenting on how little effect Google was having on sites like realestate.com.au with increased share prices /revenues traffic figures. The most vigorous of these was writing on just about every single notable real estate blog (including his own) how it wasn’t making a jot of difference, I thought at the time, it was pretty short sighted from a person who should know better!

I also made it clear that it will take time for Google’s impact to occur. Only when Google Real Estate has similar volumes of listings and only when they include the searchability of these listings directly within the search engine will it begin to have an impact on the majors.

Now it seems Google is stepping it up a gear……..is this an aggressive phase for Google?

During a session at the 2010 Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York, Sam Sebastian, Google’s director of local and business-to-business markets, was quoted as saying “We’re actively looking to acquire one to two small real estate companies a month.”

Read this again………
“We’re actively looking to acquire one to two small real estate companies a month.” This statement speaks volumes of just how important Google thinks real estate is to their overall search strategy. It tells me they really do think it is one of the most popular search markets. Many people are talking of Google purchasing the likes of Trulia, Roost and some other independent companies. Personally, I think they will buy into products that compliment and drive traffic to their search and real estate website rather than buy other search engines and portals, they will also more than likely delve into products to compliment their Andriod operating system and new phone offerings.

Life without Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au?
One thing is for sure, in a few years the real estate landscape will be completely different. Once Google has comparable listings and if it is confident it has a faster way to search then all that needs to happen is for consumers to become aware and use the systems and things will get tough for the portals.

Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au continue to provide a decent service to agents, however it is the control that agents are wary of – no one likes having monopolies or duopolies, it only serves the few and each and every time hurts too many businesses and stifles innovation. Google’s involvement in any major industry allows a fair price to be charged for services, forces innovation and will make companies like Realestate.com.au and Domain.com.au offer better support and services for their money.

Unlike other updates which Google has completed a preview of these new search results can be found at www2.sandbox.google.com and the new change has been nicknamed Caffeine

The results are for the US but you can manually add &gl=au to the end of the query string to get Australian specific results. Now it goes without saying that this is obviously not the final version as they would have released it if it was ready.

I ran through some major real estate searches just to see what the overall effect will be among the major portals and real estate groups. I have only checked the first page for each keyword and if there are no more changes to Caffeine before its launched it appears on a national level at least that Myhome will be the biggest winner and Domain the biggest loser.

If you want to know how your website will be effected for your choice keywords check out http://www.sembience.com/labs/google-caffeine-ranking and don’t forget to change it to Australia.

After months of waiting Enormo.com (formally known as Properazzi.com) has finally soft-launched a real estate portal Enormo-australia.com in Australia.

Enormo classify themselves as “The world’s largest real estate portal”, if you look at the countries they have infiltrated then they may well be correct.

Enormo is an international real estate portal with over 7 million property listings from 70 countries around the world. They also have over 60 country-specific ‘gateway’ domains which they use for their portals in most countries.

A quick glance at the site and you will see it is nice and clean with no 3rd party advertising clutter. This enables pages to quickly load and because only 1 image is included on property pages also helps speeds things up. Another thing worth noting is that on the property page there is a link which sends users directly to the agent’s website. This is great for agents as unlike other Australian portals property seekers can easily navigate to an agents website.

The only issue with the portal at the moment is the lack of power of their property search tool:

• Users can only search via state or city. This is ok at the moment but as they get more and more properties users in Australia will want to search via Suburb.
• When you type in ‘Brisbane’ to the main search tool only Brisbane in the United States appears. This could be because this search tool isn’t set up to draw data from the Australian database yet, but to have any impact in Australia they need to correct this.

How much does it cost?

“Agents can list their properties for US$129 (1-100 listings) or US$188 (101-1000 listings) per month, on a rolling subscription basis; there are discounts available for Partner agents and regular offers for certain segments of vendors.”

Given how tight things currently are in the Australian real estate market and that free portals like Myhome and Homehound struggle to attract agents to list properties, I am not too sure agents will have the budget to allocate money to another portal.

But hey, this is an international real estate portal so they do have an offering of potential international property buyers that stretches further than any other Australian portal!