homesales.com.au has launched a new free to list service for licensed real estate agents. The no-cost offer is ongoing and is open to real estate agents selling residential properties Australia-wide.

There are no contracts, commissions or hidden costs. Agents simply list their properties free on the website which each month leverages the carsales.com Ltd network of sites’ 15-million-plus user sessions*.

homesales.com.au, the property arm of Australia’s No.1 automotive classifieds group carsales.com Ltd, launched in 2009 as a dedicated residential real estate site. Since then the site has grown to feature Australia-wide inventory, including listings from more than 1000 agents.

The latest evolution of the site makes it quick, easy and free for licensed real estate agents. It provides premium exposure for agents looking to target property listings and marketing campaigns towards a vendor-rich and location specific market.

homesales.com.au’s revenue model does not include hefty agent advertising charges or shared commissions. The site leverages its audience and attracts revenue from sources other than real estate agents.

homesales.com.au was carsales.com Ltd’s first foray outside the automotive marketplace. A listed ASX 200 company with a market capitalisation of over $1 billion, carsales’ network of sites attracts more than 15.2 million sessions * each month.

The company also brings to the real estate marketplace more than 10 years of online experience along with cutting edge technology and development resources.

When contacted by B2 Rhett Dallwitz, homesales.com.au General Manager said:

homesales.com.au has a strong audience that are by definition in the market to buy residential properties. Our free to list service gives real estate agents the ability to target these buyers at no cost.

Agents can signup to list by calling 1300 291 914 or visiting www.homesales.com.au and clicking on ‘Agent Signup’.

About homesales.com.au

homesales.com.au launched in 2009 as a dedicated residential real estate site. Since then the site has grown to feature Australia-wide inventory, including listings from more than 1000 agents providing premium exposure to a vendor-rich and location specific market.

About carsales.com Ltd.
carsales.com Ltd listed on the ASX in 2009 and is the largest online automotive, motorcycle and marine classifieds business in Australia, attracting more Australians interested in buying or selling cars, motorcycles and boats than any other classified group of websites. carsales.com Ltd’s first revenues were reported in the financial year 1998. The company is one of only a few to have made the BRW Fast 100 for five consecutive years. carsales.com.au is Australia’s number one automotive website and in May 2011 attracted 9.2 million user sessions *. The Carsales Network of websites includes CarPoint.com.au, discountnewcars.com.au, quicksales.com.au, Redbook.com.au and motorcycle, boat, truck and machinery websites. The network boasted in excess of 15.2 million user
sessions** in May 2011.

* Source: Nielsen Online Market Intelligence, Automotive Publishers May 2011
**Source: Nielsen Online Site Census, Carsales Network Aggregate, May 2011

I’ve recently discussed the merits of the portal with Craig Honeyman owner and Managing Director:

Q. Craig, what were your goals in establishing Realestateguide?

A. Our goal very early on was to develop a system that would deliver quality traffic and leads independently of major portal support. We do not upload to REA and never have.

Q. What are the key performance indicators for Realestateguide?

A. Between 2008-2010 we tested with only 1000 listings and received top traffic results

• Close to 1 million visitors total
• 772,000 Totally unique visitors direct from successful organic placements
• Close to 80% Australian traffic
• 4.3 million page views

With close to 1 million visitors in 3 years (on only 1000 listings) you can see how this platform would increase in traffic and leads exponentially if the data was increased dramatically.

Q. Craig, what differentiates the Realestateguide portal model from existing portals in Australia?

A. Our system should be thought of as one that bridges the SEO gap between the user and agent:

(1) User Search- Search Engine > (2) RealEstateGuide > (3) Agent Listings > (4) Leads to Agent

Our system also allows for unique custom keyword entries for each listing. This can be achieved by the agent logging into their account or by our main administration. As listings are upgraded to Feature or Executive placements, their ranking increases meaning more traffic is achieved.

The unique advantage of this platform is that when data increases, so too will the traffic and leads to advertisers. This is because of successful organic search structure. This system ranks the agents listings independently in Google and other engines as well as our main suburb or state directories.

Q. Does your model work and if so do you have solid figures to back it up?

A. This portal has been under slow development since 1999. We have deliberately kept this model back until we knew that it could deliver quality lead generation.

Since 2005 we invested a considerable amount of time, money and focus into back end structure and SEO for this platform. With 3 years of testing we received 89% of all traffic via (not paid) but organic search engine placements. In other words close to 90% of all visitors found us in a successful organic search. Google topped this at 71%.

The majority of agents who have tested receive quality lead generation above the majority of the larger free portals and some paid subscription based platforms.

Q. How much can someone buy Realestateguide for?

A. We are now requesting major industry funding and support to launch this portal to the next level. A total purchase of this portal model would be considered or part therein.

Is this just another portal beating their chest and pretending they do things better than their competitors? My opinion is no, as in relation to delivering property seeker leads I know for a fact they do achieve this. Only a handful of my clients list on Realestateguide but in discussions with 4 of them they’ve indicated that the enquiries they receive from Realestateguide are in most cases more than what they receive from Myhome or Homehound. This is quite an achievement given they only have 1000 listings on the portal.

I’ll let you be the judge for yourself but Craig is happy to answer any questions through the forum or can be contacted on 0457 080 683. Further details in relation to what’s on offer in the sale can be viewed here.

The Video

ListGlobally.com Simon Baker from Peter Ricci on Vimeo.

Overview

There is a little more to this product that warrants more than just a first glance. The software allows any agency to list properties for sale on www.listglobally.com for a fee of $90 per listing for 90 days  Listglobally.com then feeds (pushes) those listings to many of the most popular real estate websites in the world automatically including Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, United Arab Emirates, with many more in the pipeline.

Here are some of the websites that www.listglobally.com pushes to:

• rightmove.co.uk (United Kingdom)
• immobilienscout24.de (German)
• enormo.com (World)
• realestate.co.jp (Japan)
• iproperty.com.my (Malaysia)
• iproperty.com.sg (Singapore)
• propertyfinder.ae (United Arab Emirates)
• canadahomeguide.tv (Canada)
• gohome.com.hk (Hong Kong)
• 99acres.com (India)

The software looks to be very clean and efficient, the website looks the same, only information needed is presented and I like this approach. if you wish to join you have two options for adding your listings, you can join for free and then add each listing manually or you can feed your listings (talk to your IT people) to listglobally.com and then login and select which listings you want to activate for a fee of $90 per listing for 90 days. Most of these sites are the most popular in their country and the global ones like Enormo.com (which is really the only international portal available) should give your listings some decent exposure.

Listglobally.com have a number of country specific sites that have actually added on an “International section” for your listings to appear on and I understand in some cases listglobally.com have actually built in some of these international sections for portals.

If there is an inherent weakness in the product, it is this – I have real doubts that anyone would go to a site like realestate.com.au to search for listings in Japan , UK, India etc. If  you were a serious buyer, you would seek out sites that had all the listings for that country. So just keep in mind that the figures quoted (around 40 million eyeballs) are actually not very accurate as far as the sections of the portals we are talking about with Enormo being the only true global website. Realestate.com.au may get 5 million visitors per month, however the International section may only get a few hundred thousand –  so just keep this in mind.

As for the cost, $90 per listing for 90 days does sound pretty cheap but if you are going to market your whole portfolio, this can get quite expensive (10 x = $900, 100 times = $9,000), I am never a fan of time-limited fees, I would hate to see a realestate.com.au or domain.com.au do this in Australia although it will only be a matter of time before agents are charged per listing as more and more agents become mobile and offices begin declining in numbers (and they will).

All in all Listglobally.com should be a decent offering, but it will take time a few years to mature. At the moment the offering is fairly limited and probably will only be used by agents to attract more vendors,as with anything, the longevity of products like this does come down to the value it provides real estate agents.

I suggest you give it a go with one or two listings, you can jump right in now and give it a run with a property or three!

Simon is a pretty astute fellow and his reputation alone will get him off to a decent start in the market, long term – if they stick at it – I expect Listglobally.com to be a winner!

As a note for disclosure I am a shareholder in www.zooproperty.com which in some small way competes with Listglobally.com, although on a different level.

From what Greg Ellis said, part of their future plans for innovation within the new site upgrade means that we can look forward to extra “Product & Consumer Features being released approximately every 90 days”.

The new look site has been “designed to improve consumer experience” Greg said, and that they plan to “continue to be best in class for finding property”.

One of the key points emphasised to agents in attendance was that their site will help agents “Win Listings, Build a Rent Roll and Sell Property” and that REA based their design around 3 value propositions.

1. Valued by Consumers :- Find  -  Discover  -  Share ( ie share – “leverage the networks that consumers trust, their family & friends via Facebook & Twitter“).

2. Valued by Agents :- Win new listings, Build your brand, Agent profile, Sell & Rent Property and Cost Effective.

3. Valued by Vendors :- Predictable & Provable.

Greg Ellis also covered some of the recent changes made that will impact the sites use:-

For all site users there has been a New Home Page, Enhanced Search, Multiple Views (Gallery View, List View & Map View)  Compare Features (pointed out that the agents logo appears in the middle of the browsers computer screen) and MyRealEstate (an improved ability to store information on the site).

The suite of products for agents discussed were:- Suburb Profile Sponsorship, Suburb Sponsorship (IAB size ads), Exclusive Agent Showcase (No longer Guaranteed Top Spot but rather made available on every results page within that search), Feature Agent (a section of the site which has seen a 400% increase in traffic), Feature Property (appears as featured in List View, Gallery View & Map View) and eBrochure ( currently with over 800,000 people registered ).

An Insight Into The Future

Greg Ellis also announced that Realestate.com.au will shortly be releasing ‘Premiere Property’ which looks like it will appear on the top of the search results like the ‘old’ Guaranteed Top Spot but the ‘Premiere Property’ will open to a property page which features both the property & the agents details and branding exclusively (‘No Third Party Advertisers’).

Pricing was not discussed at this stage for ‘Premier Property’ but I can imagine it won’t come cheap when you consider the amount of revenue they could raise by keeping the advertising on these new pages.

Also, he mentioned that their Mobile site has already had 450,000 UB’s and they plan to have a Mobile/Social product which enables sharing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & RSS.

Finally, Greg Ellis felt that there was also a great opportunity existing for agents to promote their profile via the Local Voices section of their site.

Richard Freudenstein, Chairman of REA Board then came on to say that he was “pleased that so many customers were involved in the development of the new site” and congratulated the management team of REA because “the site was delivered on time and on budget”.

On Thursday evening I had a phone hookup with Simon Baker, former Managing Director of Realestate.com.au. We spoke about a range of issues and I will place some excerpts from the interview here. Simon recently departed from Realestate.com.au in the typical pathetic fashion that large organisations feel necessary and from his blog My CEO Life Simon explained his departure.

“I was summonded to a hotel room in town, asked for my access pass and told not to go back to the office and that my desk would be packed up and couriered to me – 7.5 years over in a flash. I was not to say goodbye to the team.”

Since that date Simon has been inundated with offers and judging by the response was very popular amongst his team. Simon is still a large shareholder of realestate.com.au so I am sure he will want to see continued growth from this company. You have got to give credit where it is due, the company now has a market capitalisation of over 500 million and employs some 750 people.

Realestate.com.au has a number of challenges ahead of them, not only trying to keep growth running along nicely, but also making its international businesses profitable (nearly all the profit comes from Australia).

There was no malice in this interview towards REA and he answered all questions openly.

So here is the interview.

It has been a dramatic few weeks, can you share with us some of your thoughts over the past few weeks, what have you been up to?

“Well I have had over 20 opportunities present themselves over the since the announcement. Anything from board positions, investment opportunities and of course some serious offers which I am taking my time mulling over, it has to fit.” Simon is also involved in a number of early stage companies and has investments in a number of these, from real estate to arts. Simon is currently Chairman and CEO of Artshub, a Director of Redbubble and a Director of 3eep. Simon seems to have a passion for the arts and you can see this from his investments, ArtsBub looks like a little ripper.

Where do you see yourself working, do you think you will remain in the online space in real estate or just general technology?

“Well it will have to be on the Internet, I am not interested in anything non internet related, I couldn’t cope with it.” So I am weighing up some opportunities and will make a decision in due course, but I have had a plethora of interest both in and around the real estate space.”

Realestate.com.au saw incredible growth over the past few years. Is this going to continue, or do you think it will be tough to continue at around 40% growth? We all have been waiting for Google Classifieds (Google Real Estate) to come to Australia. Do you see this as a threat to current revenue models?

“No”. Simon recently had a chat with Abe Murray Product Manager at Google and pointed out that Google are not in the business of taking down markets, more so complimenting them.

“Only around 30% of traffic comes from Google, Realestate.com.au is now part of everyday life for consumers, the real challenge is for off-line print media, realestate.com.au drives leads for agents, this is what we do, currently in Australia around 15% of marketing is spent online compared with 85% in newspapers, yet newspapers struggle with around 20% of leads. Naturally agents will just get smarter where they spend there money.”

Will the Portals embrace Google?

“Portals will embrace Google, they will be crazy not to”. Simon also spoke of the challenge for Google if realestate.com.au, domain.com.au, realestateview.com.au, myhome.com.au all send the same properties and perhaps also agents sent feeds to Google as well. We did disagree on some aspects of this, as I did point out that Google will be smart enough to filter these or link to all sources. Simon does however feel that Google will not be a threat, he thinks they will compliment the portals.

Newspapers have been struggling with print property guides, seeing revenues fall over the past few years. Can you ever see them give up, like the LA Times has done recently?

“I don’t think they will give up, agents will use newspapers more for branding and perhaps only high quality properties will be featured in papers – maybe 1.5 million dollar properties.” I agreed with Simon on this. I mentioned that it may well start at around $600,000 but more and more consumers will not want advertising in newspapers and each year the benchmark will increase, lower priced properties, especially in times where many may be getting less than what they paid for properties and will not want to spend money in print.

Do you think print and online departments should merge?

“No”. Many have speculated that this is where Simon and the Board had the base of their disagreement. I think the ‘no’ was a great answer, short and sweet. It is also speculated that Fairfax Digital and Print are also having the same bunfight.

Where do you see real estate in 5 years? Do you think Mobile is the answer or do you think digital television is the next big area?

“I think it will be via the browser, whether it is video or not, the mobile market here in Australia is different to some countries where there are so many more options and everyday uses for mobile phones – maybe an integrated TV browser”.

If you had to name one thing you could be proud of in your time at REA what would it be?

“Created a household name”. Simon struggled to name just one. He also spoke of his time coming into a company on its knees and systematically building it up with a great passionate team and taking it international.

Simon was leaving on a flight overseas tomorrow, so I thanked him for his time and wished him luck. I think we will see him somewhere building a smallish company up, more than likely in the real estate space. He does have a passion outside of real estate, but real estate is where he has all of the connections and a great reputation, he understands the market internationally, so I think that will be where we see his more prominent roles.

If you get a chance take a look at his MyCEO Blog it has some great articles and insights into his life as a CEO and also some good commentary on his departure.

There are some fascinating things in here, so it’s well worth a read. For example, Teena feels she gets more leads than the office-based agents.Read on to find out why.

NOTE: Because Teena is a guest on this blog, I would like to ask the more aggressive commentators on business2.com.au to be gentle to Teena and grateful that she has been willing to share a bit of herself with us.

Q. Teena, tell us about your career trajectory. How did you end up a Road Warrior?

A. My background prior to real estate for 26 years was photographic processing & printing, marketing, graphic artwork and design. I have been in real estate for 8 years, worked originally at a traditional suburban real estate office and the impetus to make me move to Coldwell Banker Property Direct (CBPD) in May 2006 was the need to be more “independent.” I was looking for a company who showed something a little different from the other offices.  I had outgrown the office I was working at and wanted to operate and function in a different number of areas [ geographically speaking as well as career-wise ] which I wasn’t allowed to do, nor encouraged to do and CBPD offered the opportunity I was looking for.

Q. You have said that CBPD calls Road Warriors like yourself “Suburb Agents”.  How do suburb agents fit into CBPD’s business?

A. The original “suburb agents” model for CBPD came about I believe because the company saw the need to expand in the area of residential suburb sales. The office actually specialises in inner city projects and apartment sales, so the suburb model came in as a separate department. The suburb agents appointed have all had a number of years experience in suburban offices, and we were all looking to be independent operators as such, working the majority of our time out of our specific suburbs.

Q. What sort of properties and number of transactions you work on?

A. I cover a wide selection of property sale types including acreage, residential, house and land packages, land, land developments, units, townhouses and seniors investment properties – as well as personally handling property management on the Northside of Brisbane. Due to the range of properties I work on, I cover a range of property type contracts and documents and I have to be conversive in all of the areas I am dealing with. This diversity in itself makes for a busy daily schedule but I find it rewarding and like to cover as many facets of real estate as I can.The number of transactions I work on vary, and it has been quieter of late, but I am currently waiting on around 8 sales to settle over the next 2-3 months.

Q. Do you personally like being a suburb agent and how does it compare to being a traditional agent?

A. I love being a suburb agent. Personally, it gives me the independence I need as well as the mobility to list and sell in a wider range of arenas. The main difference is probably not having to drive to and then “walk” into the traditional office each day but – because the Virtual Assistance system is in place – we can operate for the office, away from the office and still have the admin and sales support if and when we need it.The other advantage is that I receive a higher percentage of commission than if I was working out of a traditional office – because I do have the separate associated costs and expenditure from operating the way I do.

Q. Do you feel you lose anything by being suburb-based?

A. I don’t feel that I have lost anything in becoming a suburb agent – only most of the time I work longer hours because it’s only 10 steps to my office – you can’t just lock the office and walk away as easily. I am mobile and take my office with me wherever I go. Being productive is very personal I believe for a suburb agent; self motivation is imperative and you need to be fairly disciplined in your plans and systems. I consider that I am running the office from my home office. I have all the necessary equipment, computers, printers, scanners, copiers etc that a normal office has and have access to the web based systems which aid me to operate autonomously.

Q. Do you get the same number of leads from the office as the other agents?

A. The majority of my enquiries come from the internet. I get the same number of leads if not more than if I was in a traditional office, because they are coming directly to me and the enquiries I get are generally very specific so I am responding to these enquiries usually quicker than normal and on a more personal basis.

Q. Describe a typical day. What technology do you use? How is your job different than that of an office-bound agent?

A. A typical day for me starts around 6.00am, I spend about an hour having breakfast and playing housekeeper. I then spend the next 1-2 hours answering emails and sorting out my plan of attack for the day. If I have no early appointments I spend a couple of hours doing paperwork as in scanning whatever needs to be scanned and emailed to the office, updating the internet information and I try and arrange appointments for mid morning to early afternoon, but this of course depends on what the appointments are for.I have a couple of days each week where I am out and about most of the day, either letterbox dropping, door knocking, or researching properties, photographing what needs to be photographed and calling in to visit past and prospective clients or businesses. What I have had to force myself to do though is make time for lunch and coffee breaks away from my desk, which is not always easy to do, because I’m a bit of a workaholic. But I have realised that it is necessary to have that time out. Back in my office I spend the rest of the time doing phone calls, internet research, answering emails, creating flyers, brochure and letters for advertising, posting and letterbox drops. If I have late appointments, as in anything from 5.30 pm onwards, I generally finish off things after dinner and would normally get back online until later in the evening. Saturdays I am out most of the day organising and doing Open Homes and inspections.

Q. Do you have a boss?

A. I do not see my days as anything different from an “office – bound agent” except that I do not have to “report” to anyone as such. Dave [ MD Of Coldwell Banker Property Direct ] overseas all the suburb agents activities as we operate under his licence as Principal Licensee and are “supervised” in the respect that we regularly make contact with him to keep him updated of what we’re doing. Plus he has full access to my activities via email and our Virtual Assistant program. We regularly attend sales and training meetings in the office as well as teleconferencing between ourselves. We all were then registered salespeople and we now all have completed our full licenses, another concept CBPD has encouraged with their corporate and in-house training.I have no set hours or roster and can arrange my appointments to suit. I have a PDA, access my emails and messages wherever I may be, so am truly mobile in that sense.

Q. What online marketing do you do? How important is it to you?

A. Online marketing is vitally important to me – I need to be able to get my listings out there so I can generate the enquiries, plus they need to be effective and look good. I spend a lot of time researching other sites and listings to see if I can improve on what I have. Plus, I routinely add my URLs to google-add-url to increase visits to my site and my listings on a selection of the real estate sites the office subscribes to. Currently we subscribe to over 15 sites as well as several international sites, so I look for coverage and spread. I ask for Vendor advertising and usually obtain it, by offering a selection of reasonable options and prices including internet Feature Properties and Priority Placement, as well as print media and monthly realtor publications.

Q. How do you see your job changing in future?

A. I see it becoming more and more internet based. More mobile with the laptop and pda and more versatile because of my mobility.I see it increasing with regards to extending the number of sites I subscribe to, as well as offering the full range of real estate related services. I have very good contacts within the finance and building sector and see that aspect pushed further as well, with more and more agents being able to offer these extended services from reputable and trusted businesses. I do believe, however, that the personal contact is important to developing and maintaining a sound referral database.

Q. How do you see technology changing your job?

A. I believe the options for an agent like myself become greater with technological advancements – and because of the increase in advancements – a more viable and mobile economic business system. I am a self-confessed internet geek and love the opportunity it presents to display and market myself and my listings as well as the research and information it provides. With regards to accessing a larger number of people by having to do less, as in bulk emailing and databasing I believe this is more time and cost effective, hoping to work smarter by using technology better. I know principals who have been in the industry for many years who either are disdainful of the advances or fear them because they feel the traditional real estate agent is being lost in the scheme of things. Or maybe they feel they are losing control if the agent is not within their office walls.Not so: real estate will always be the essence of what it is – land and bricks and mortar – but the way we do real estate has to evolve.I also know many agents who embrace these changes for what they really are – improvements to enhance our lives. Real estate is not just a job to me, it’s a lifestyle, a career and an adventure.