The REINSW are holding their official launch event tonight to mark the first stage of rolling out the National Industry Based Real Estate Portal, RealEstateView.com.au and their National Sales Data platform, PropertyData.com.au into the NSW market.

Prior to the launch a number of the major real estate franchise groups have demonstrated their support for the REI move by agreeing to upload their NSW property listings onto the RealEstateView.com.au portal.

It’s anticipated that other networks and lots of independent agents will also join in and show their support for a National Industry Based Real Estate Portal and National Sales Data System over the coming weeks.

The press release states:-

Partnering with the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales (REINSW), the launch in NSW marks the 5th state in which propertydata.com.au – the industry-owned data product and realestateVIEW.com.au property portal will be operating – making it one step closer to becoming a truly national portal.

Petra Sprekos, General Manager of propertyDATA.com.au & realestateVIEW.com.au says, “This launch marks a significant milestone in our plans to become a truly national data product and portal for our agents. As NSW is the largest property market in Australia, this expansion will allow us to continue to grow our data product and the portal to become one of the leading offerings in Australia.”

In addition Ms Sprekos said “With major agents such as Century 21, Laing & Simmons, LJ Hooker, Raine & Horne, First National and PRDnationwide already publishing to our portal, we are confident that uptake of realestateVIEW.com.au will be strong as agents are looking for more cost effective tools to run their business.”

propertyDATA.com.au & realestateVIEW.com.au are currently offering a $1800 discount off the yearly subscription fee to the first 100 subscribers through the foundation membership package.

For only $385 per month for metro agents and $275 per month for regional agents, foundation membership provides access to;

1)      PropertyDATA.com.au which provides latest sales and auction results collected via the REI call centre, access to the dynamic prospecting tool – known as GoProspecting and on the market data to get a well rounded view of the market.

2)      RealestateVIEW.com.au which provides a low cost advertising solution, free multi-loading to the large portals, free rental archive to benchmark rental values in the market and free website powering .

For more information on how propertyDATA.com.au & realestateVIEW.com.au can benefit your business – visit www.realestateVIEW.com.au/NSWLaunch. (after tonight’s event) or email sales@realestateview.com.au.

I had a brief discussion with Petra Sprekos yesterday and she was pleased to see the level of support that they’ve been receiving both from within the real estate industry and outside of the industry. Petra was also very happy to see that the visitor numbers to the site had already started climbing quite significantly.

Also, earlier today Kevin Turner of REUNCUT posted an “Exclusive interview with Enzo Raimondo of REIV and David Airey of REIA about the National Real Estate Industry Portal ~ http://ow.ly/1Syrl“.

During the interview REIA President, David Airey commented that “RealEstateView.com.au is a very important part of the national fabric of the real estate institutes. The success for example in Western Australia of REIWA.com.au is evidence that Real Estate Institute members will suppoort their industry owned portal and this expansion on the eastern seaboard by RealEstateView.com.au is just a great initiative”

David also went on to say, “I think industry members will support an industry owned portal rather than the commercial alternative and the results that RealEstateView.com.au can deliver will be just as good as anybody else and probably I’d like to think better in time.”

REIV CEO, Enzo Raimondo said “We’ve been doing a lot of work over the past 18 months on putting together a national platform, not jut as a portal for consumers to search for property but more importantly, the tools that agents need for managing those listings, the collection of data right round the country, so we can give it back to the agents to use for CMA’s, valuations or whatever else they’d like to do with it and also a Prospecting Tool.”

He also went on to say that, “We’ve definitely driven the cost of these services down and that’s our intent right around Australia.” (You can hear the rest of the interview here).

During the interview, Enzo also told Kevin that they are currently in talks with one of the data providers with regards to having them come on board as well. At this point in time Enzo couldn’t say who it is but with REINSW and EAC/Red Square recently parting company, I can only assume that the data operator in question would be PriceFinder (PDS Live).

Whilst it’s only speculation at this stage, I hope my hunch is right because, if so, this could exert some real pressure on RP Data’s current stronghold on data throughout the Australian real estate industry.

At tonight’s launch, I’m looking forward to catching up with Wayne Stewart, President of the REINSW to see if he can shed some light on what the REINSW’s proposed launch strategy is.

One thing is for sure, it’s going to be very interesting to see how it all unfolds.

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A recent national survey of 1100 users, conducted by www.realestateVIEW.com.au aimed to gather data on potential home buyers in 2010 and their feeling about the year ahead, as well as the sacrifices they would be willing to make to purchase a property.

While rising interest rates and house prices are concerns echoed by many home buyers, people still seem to be optimistic about successfully purchasing a home in 2010, although it may not be exactly what they had in mind when they originally started their property search.

How market demand and price increases are changing buyer decisions

With the market showing record growth over the 4^th quarter of 2009, there was no surprise that buyers were reviewing their budget to buy in 2010.   In fact a whopping 2 out of 3 people expected to have to increase their budget in order to find a suitable property in a suitable location in 2010, with 72% of these individuals expecting to raise their original budget by over $20,000.  Showing that potential buyers are at least prepared for what the year ahead may bring.

However it seems that increasing their budget is not the only consideration buyers are making.  When asked about what compromises buyers are making it seems many of them are considering other alternatives to their find a suitable home.  62% of those surveyed thought they may need to look ‘further out’ than they originally planned, whilst 55% of people would look for a property of smaller size and 51% would look for a home of lower quality than originally planned.

So while prices are still rising it seems potential buyers out there are prepared to make some sacrifices to get onto the property ladder.

Overall market data such as that provided by propertydata.com.au seems to point to the fact that the prime inner suburban properties will continue to be snapped up, but more humble buyers as shown from the realestateVIEW.com.au survey are willing to move ‘out’ to find something that suits.  They may not be getting a house that is as nice as they originally planned or the house as large as they might first have thought, but they know that there are ways to make this work.  It seems that demand may not slow; it may just change a little.

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I was presenting at a seminar in Brisbane last week, where Australian Property Data provider, PriceFinder launched a new offering to real estate agents.

Taking inspiration from the success of Zillow and Trulia’s web site widgets, PriceFinder has released its own range of agent website tools for the Australian real estate industry.

According to Kent Lardner, Chief Operating Officer of PriceFinder :-

“Your web site visitors can now search for recent sales that match their property as well as view sales and growth charts for free. We have several new widgets now available as well as banners to enhance both the look and the functionality of a real estate agency website”

“The PriceFinder SalesMatch widget will allow you to find and map matching comparable sales for any property. Add this widget to auto display the most recent comparable sales for every listing on your website or simply provide a great value add-on for your website visitors.”

Widgets are an easy way to enhance your agency website and increase traffic by providing property related information to online property seekers who seem to have an unquenchable thirst for real estate statistics, comparable sales, demographics, etc.

Click Here to see these new widgets.

Future plans for PriceFinder Widgets:

“The address searched will be presented in a prospect report, printed directly from within your PriceFinder subscription platform in a future release. As part of our widget and overall product offering, PriceFinder will empower the agent with products that are currently being sold to consumers. Great for agents, not so good for businesses relying on consumer revenue.”

These PriceFinder Widgets will not only provide easy to access FREE reports to consumers but should also help real estate agent’s improve their website conversion. By providing an opt in facility for buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, etc to recieve the FREE reports, the Widgets will inturn generate online leads around the clock for those agents using the PriceFinder system.

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The smart agent should always be looking to list stock that matches hot buyer activity. In 2009 this space was largely dominated by first time home buyers (given the well publicised FHOG), but what buyer groups are set to be hot in 2010?

A recent survey from the Bureau of Statistics and RP Data confirmed that upgraders are most likely to be the largest buyer group in 2010, along with an increase in investor activity.

The ABS Housing Mobility Survey suggests that a massive 45% of Australian home owners feel their homes are too small. The survey was conducted when interest rates were twice today’s levels, and upgrading was not as financially viable for many home owners, but with interest rates now significantly lower (despite the three recent small increases) it’s no wonder that upgraders are predicted to be very active in 2010.

So what do these buyers want? In addition to a bigger property, they also want a better quality property that is close to shops, cafes and transport and in a quieter location with better security.

Investors are also likely to also be in the marketplace in high numbers next year. The same survey also revealed the main reasons tenants are unhappy with their current homes: poor condition, lack of security, noise levels, traffic levels and not being close enough to shops and transport. In addition, 25% complained their property was too cold.

In short, tidy properties that are secure, on a quiet street (but still close to local amenities), preferably north facing (with light, bright living spaces, balconies and backyards) and within 15kms of a major CBD will be like gold dust in 2010, as smart investors should flock to them like bees around a honey pot.

Best of luck for 2010.

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When Telstra paid AUD $636 million for he Trading Post in 2004 many questioned yet another wasted acquisition for the Telco giant (the list is long). Today those questions have been vindicated as Telstra has now shut down the 22 print versions of the Trading Post to concentrate on the online edition. Another hit will come as many visitors to the website would have come from the print versions and the final blow maybe the poor structure of the Trading Post website – as only last year I attempted unsuccessfully to post a product (a free trial offer – that wasn’t actually free) and gave up after I could not work out how to post (it kept directing me to pay).  So I missed out on saying the phrase ‘tell him he’s dreaming’ all because a special offer I clicked on didn’t turn out out be that special after all.

As for another ‘dreamer’ Ron Walker is trying to paint his tenure at Fairfax as a savior telling ABC PM, “If we had continued to rely on the cash flows from the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and the Financial Review, the company wouldn’t have existed today, so, it’s paid off for us”. Yes Ron, paying $700 plus million for a ‘New Zealand only’ classifieds site saved Fairfax! Fairfax has some great opportunities but the window is closing very fast and buying up expensive digital assets that do not even cover the interest on the loan to buy that same asset is not the answer. I have no idea what Ron Walker has done in his time on the Fairfax board, but I can assure you he will not be remembered as a savior!

It truly dumbfounds me how large organisations such as Telstra, Fairfax, PBL or News Limited rarely ever create a unique product from scratch. They are all very good at buying assets at the height of the market and selling or getting out at the bottom of the market. These companies already have huge traffic to their major sites and massive databases in the classifieds arena, be it in cars, jobs, houses or general classifieds., so it should be relatively easy for them to create successful new products and increase shareholder value.

They need to get out of the habit of buying up websites for 100′s of millions of dollars and invest a few million each year in a ‘Black Ops’ style tech team to come up with new and exciting products from existing databases/systems they have.

This team should be able to tap into (read) any database and should be able to create new products from scratch without someone telling them ‘no you cannot do that, this will affect this or that’. The idea is that you create new products and test them in markets across your digital assets. This team should be able to go and meet with any division of the organisation and be granted access to any data. Yes, you must have some oversight, but that is at the end of the process, not at the beginning – if a product doesn’t fit – or is too risky – it gets shelved.

The alternative is to continue dying a slow death and live in denial. There does come a time when banks will abandon these companies or their money will run  out and for some of them the only way to survive will be to do what Telstra is doing and selling off or closing down assets.

This is the digital era and web/mobile based products will be everything to these companies in less than 10 years.

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