I’m talking to you.

Yes, you.

The person who thinks you will start an Australian real estate portal that will shoot right past domain, dethrone realestate.com.au and become the new number one.

Or, maybe you’re an agent who for some reason (perhaps because you have to send them a check every month?) doesn’t like realestate.com.au and wishes the industry would start a portal as a realestate.com.au killer.

I have a message for you: you’re dreaming.

I tell you this because of a very interesting discussion that developed in the comments of Ryan’s excellent post on FarmBuy.com.au. I thought I’d pull out the topic and expand on it.

Face it. realestate.com.au is the dominant market leader in online real estate listings in Australia. It would be very hard to beat them at their own game. What’s more, you cannot expect to copy realestate.com.au and win without their help, in the form of massive, ongoing self-destructive behaviour. They are not likely to give you that help.

All those hopeful entrepreneurs trying to create a new website to knock realestate.com.au out of its top spot and take it for themselves are on a fool’s quest. That goes for everyone from domain.com.au and on down. Domain can aspire to a profitable second place. Smaller, later comers can aspire to make a living, maybe, but certainly not to kill the giant.

The plain truth is realestate.com.au is the leader and will be the leader in online real estate listings in Australia as long as there are online real estate listings in Australia. There have been instances in business history when a player with a dominance similar to realestate.com.au’s was displaced by a competitor, but not many.

I say this as someone who has worked at realestate.com.au and with other real estate related web businesses on three continents, and as an entrepreneur.But, if you think I am missing something here, please enlighten me in the comments.

How to Make Money

Tell them they're dreaming!

Instead of leadership, go for a niche and establish a strong brand as the first and best in that niche. Here are some niches that are already in play, with varying degrees of success:

• Farms: FarmBuy
• Rentals: Rent.com.au
• Regional: AllHomes
• Premium property: Million Plus
• Free listings: The Home Page
• Chinese buyers: Juwai.com (a client of mine)

If you can be content with a niche, you could possibly be profitable, or at least one day sell out at a profit. It will be hard, because the Australian market is so small, but it seems possible. A niche could also be an add-on to another real estate-related business, giving that other business strategic advantages — like domain.com.au does for Fairfax’s newspapers.

Still Dreaming?

If a niche is not enough for you, and you want to beat realestate.com.au, there is only one credible strategy. You must dominate a new niche. This new niche by definition cannot be dominated by realestate.com.au and must be able to grow big enough to one day eclipse realestate.com.au. The flaw in this strategy is that you have to be riding a wave of history for it to work for you. Those waves don’t come along often.

For an example, look at realestate.com.au’s own history. The major media businesses had print real estate classifieds locked up prior to the realestate.com.au’s rise. They were unassailable. Classifieds were so reliable and profitable that analysts called them “rivers of gold”.

Then, three friends in Melbourne registered the domain name realestate.com.au and began persuading skeptical real estate agents to put their listings online. They chose a real estate classifieds niche the big players had overlooked: online. And they made themselves the leader in that niche.

(It is true that News International has a stake in realestate.com.au today, but that only goes back to 1992, when Simon Baker in his wisdom convinced News to buy it. realestate.com.au was a pure, independent startup in the classic mold. I reckon if you did the numbers, you would find realestate.com.au has been a much more profitable investment for News Corp than myspace.)

Over time, little realestate.com.au grew and grew by riding the growth of the internet. realestate.com.au won online and rode the internet’s historic growth into the very backbone of our economy and culture. The big media companies still dominate print classifieds, but print is sliding into irrelevance.

As of today, realestate.com.au has reported record revenue for six consecutive half-years, while the newspapers are struggling.

The lesson to draw from this history is simple. real estate portals should not take on the established leader head-on. Find a new niche and become the leader in that niche. You can make a living, and you may even get lucky enough to ride a historic trend into great riches.

After a final mediation with the REA group yesterday, realEstate1 is refusing to be bullied into re-branding and will be fighting in the Federal Court for the right to use the generic term ‘real estate’ as part of their registered trademark.

A court date has not yet been set.

realEstate1 Managing Director Geoff Luff said;

“It is disappointing that the REA Group is continuing with their legal action against realEstate1. However, we look forward to a favorable outcome.“

It is business as usual for realEstate1, who are still offering a FREE to List Membership for agents Australia wide. Agents wanting to list their properties on realEstate1 can register here.

Yet, Peter Mericka of Lawyers Real Estate has either found a loop hole in the Victorian agency licensing legislation or Lawyers Real Estate has simply been placed into the too hard basket and has been allowed to continue to practice under the business name Lawyers Real Estate for the past 4 – 5 years without having undertaken any formal real estate licensing… That’s right! 4 – 5 years without a real estate license.

Either way, judging by Peter Mericka’s statement within his video on Today Tonight below and a letter from Robert Guthrie of the NSW Fair Trading Property Services Licensing posted on the Australian Real Estate Blog it would appear that Lawyers Real Estate may be looking to expand their real estate operation into other areas and possibly interstate.

Now I don’t know if it’s simply because of the name of his business that the industry bodies are too scared to take Peter Mericka on or whether there is in fact a loophole within the current Victorian legislation which entitles him to legally continue to operate in this manner as Lawyers Real Estate?

But if there is a loophole, is this business model what agents can expect to see more of into the future?

As a licensed agent I have invested a lot of time and money to achieve my licence and remain licensed.

I continue to pay annual renewal fees and have to undertake ongoing training to obtain the required CPD points required to continue to hold a real estate licence year after year. After watching the Today Tonight story about Lawyers Real Estate, I’m starting to wonder what on earth I’m paying the fees for.

I have to say that I agree with one thing that Peter says in the Today Tonight interview, “the people who matter are the real estate consumers”.

Which leads me to wondering if something did go sour with a transaction via Lawyers Real Estate would the consumer be protected by the Victorian Property Fund? Or is there a different fund that they can make a compensation claim through?

Listings appearing on realestate.com.au

And then there’s the issue about whether Lawyers Real Estate should be allowed to upload their listings onto realestate.com.au as they currently do.

Under the latest version of the General Terms and Conditions for Residential Subscriptions to www.realestate.com.au it clearly spells out who can upload onto their site…

2.1 You represent and warrant in respect of each property you list on our web site that:

(a) you are the holder of a current real estate agent’s licence in the State(s) or Territory to which your use of the Service relates;

(b) you have a signed authority to sell from the owner or vendor (such as an Agency Agreement or Authority to Sell); and

(c) you are authorised to make available the material uploaded or submitted to use the Service;

(d) you will not allow another real estate office in your real estate group to list the property using your subscription. Where a proprietor of a property authorises multiple real estate offices in your real estate group to list a property you acknowledge that:

(i) this does not entitle you to authorise any other person (including, without limitation, any associated offices in your real estate group) to make use of the one subscription; and
(ii) any such conduct is in breach of these Terms and Conditions; and

(e) you are providing the full range of agent services (as set out in our Private Listing Policy).

Whilst Lawyers Real Estate don’t appear to comply with this section of realestate.com.au’s T & C’s and their ability to continue to upload onto REA is up to the respective legal departments to sort out, one thing I noticed is that Lawyers Real Estate appears to have very little regard for wanting to comply with some of realestate.com.au’s AUP.

Under the realestate.com.au Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) – Residential, it would appear that REA don’t allow other website addresses to be promoted within the copy text of a property being advertised yet Lawyers Real Estate are currently including the URL www.SLOD.com.au within the body of the property text when uploading their listings which appears to be in breach of 4.1.6 the Misuse of fields.

Here’s a screen capture…http://screencast.com/t/YmU2ZTQwNTg

Misuse of fields
4.1.6. Placing irrelevant information in an information, description or picture field. You must only use the information, description or picture fields for inserting information that is intended for those fields. For example, inserting the name or contact details of your business or agency in the description header or property description field is not acceptable. Inserting a business or agency logo as a picture in a property listing is also not acceptable.  For copyright purposes, small watermarks are permissible on images, but only in one corner of the image. Superimposed wording or text is not permissible.

The SLOD.com.au URL provides a link to Lawyers Real Estate online service for bidding, making enquiries and booking inspections, etc. If the URL is allowed to continue to appear on Lawyers Real Estate’s listings under the legal interpretation of Clause 4.1.6 or other parts of the realestate.com.au AUP, it could then open the door for agents to feature website URL’s within the property text field.

What about Privacy Laws?

On top of that, uploading the seller’s contact phone number onto a public site like realestate.com.au is not only in breach of 4.1.24.2 in REA’s AUP but wouldn’t that also breach other Privacy Laws?

Here’s a screen capture…http://screencast.com/t/NTczN2ZiOT

Note: For privacy reasons I have covered the seller’s name & contact number.

Other inappropriate content
4.1.24. Using the Service for any unlawful, illegal, malicious or improper purpose. For example: it is not acceptable to, in your use of the Service, display material that:

4.1.24.1. may defame or discredit another person or business;

4.1.24.2. may disclose private, personal or confidential information;

4.1.24.3. might be considered obscene, offensive, menacing or abusive;

4.1.24.4. might infringe the intellectual property rights of others;

4.1.24.5. may violate any law, regulation, standard, content requirements or code promulgated by any relevant authority or industry body.

I’m sure Peter Mericka of Lawyers Real Estate will be able to shed some light on how this is legally OK?

I’d also be interested to know if clients sign an agency agreement when they list with Lawyers Real Estate and whether the lawyers have signed an inspection report and included opinions of price on the property or do they simply rely on an independent valuer to assess the price for their clients.

And if so, is the registered valuation an added cost or is it included in their flat fee?

If Lawyers Real Estate has indeed found a loophole and they are allowed to continue without the normal licensing that a real estate agent has to have then as I mentioned earlier, it could open a huge can of worms and we could see a lot more lawyers opening up real estate agencies.

If this is allowed to continue then agents should really start to question why we are paying annual licensing fees to the government departments if they won’t police and legislate the licensing of the industry more effectively.

Plus, I’d be really interested to know how Lawyers Real Estate got to be on realestate.com.au in the first place?

Finally, I don’t have an issue with the discount commission model that Lawyers Real Estate are using because discount real estate agencies have been around for years and are now a dime a dozen, but it does concern me that some consumers may feel that going to a Lawyer to sell their property is going to mean that they feel protected and that they are going to get the best deal.

For example, here is a video of what some of Lawyers Real Estate clients have said…

If you’re considering employing a lawyer (either with or without a real estate licence) to sell your property then it’s important to remember that in the end they are in business and they will expect to get paid a commission.

And just because the negotiations are done by a lawyer doesn’t guarantee that it will always turn out to be the best thing for their client. Many legal deals end up being negotiated on the steps of court rooms and it’s not always the case that a Lawyer’s client walks away 100% happy with the end result.

Consumers still need to do their due diligence because in the legal profession, as per the real estate profession, some people get good representation and others get poor representation.

I was speaking at an event yesterday where one of the agents mentioned the CommBank Property Guide iPhone App and the significant amount of data that was now being made available via realestate.com.au and RPData.

As the discussion went on, one of the agents logged on and started searching through the Comm Bank’s app. Only by fluke, another agent suggested they take a look at one of his latest listings which is going up for Auction.

The listing agent was absolutely horrified to see that the property which was uploaded onto realestate.com.au as an auction now appeared on Comm Bank’s app with an asking price displayed.

The price that was displayed on the Comm Bank app was the same price that the agent had inserted under the search price field.

Any pricing entered within the search price field has always been a hidden price whether a property goes up for auction or whether it has an asking price. These prices have never been for public viewing, or at least until now.

I was blown away when the agent showed me the listing in question on the Commbank site. I couldn’t believe that something so fundamental and basic could be breached.

I followed up with the agent again today. To REA’s credit the pricing issue for that listing has now been rectified but in typical fashion the agent was told that it’s not their fault the issue seemed to be from CommBank’s side? So who’s fault is it really?

Agents don’t have an agreement with CommBank’s Property Guide app, they have an agreement with REA Group.

Under the circumstances, should agents have the option to not make listings, etc available to Comm Bank’s app?

Is this only an isolated case? Has it happened to others? Will it happen again? Can REA Group and Comm Bank guarantee that no such issue will ever happen again?

Can you imagine what would have happened if the vendor had seen it? Who knows whether a buyer has seen it or not? Does this mean that agents have to check every listing on every site that their data is being uploaded to?

NOTE: Out of respect for the agent and the vendor trying to sell their property I have deliberately left out the specific details of the price, property, area, agent, etc because sharing that information could have a detrimental impact on the result of the property auction.

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

” YAHOO!7 AND REALESTATE.COM.AU ‘SHACK UP’ AND FORM NEW PARTNERSHIP

Addition of property listings means Yahoo!7 visitors can find everything ‘under the one roof’

SYDNEY, Australia, 5 May, 2010 – Australia’s largest property portal realestate.com.au and Australian online media company, Yahoo!7 have joined forces to launch the Yahoo!7 real estate channel. The content will launch on Yahoo!7 site today, in an increasingly hot property market.

Henry Ruiz, General Manager Consumer Marketing for realestate.com.au stated this new partnership with Yahoo!7 comes at an opportune time following the recent re-launch of the realestate.com.au website. The new channel will provide Yahoo!7’s 7.2 million visitors per month^[i] with access to great new tools and enhanced features to help them find the right property to buy, rent or sell.

“We are excited to be aligned with Yahoo!7, as it further extends our reach which during the month of March 2010 realestate.com.au attracted over 6.5 million unique browsers.^[ii] As a nation obsessed with property this is another channel to help consumers achieve the great Australian dream of home ownership,” said Henry Ruiz.

With this recent partnership with realestate.com.au Yahoo!7 has now strategically partnered with the top three Australian portals that provide listings for employment (SEEK), motoring (Carsales.com.au) and now property with realestate.com.au. These three partnerships with Australia’s top three listing sites are designed to deliver the best experience to Yahoo!7 users.

Emma Harrington, Director of Partnerships for Yahoo!7 said that the new partnership with realestate.com.au complemented the existing portfolio of classified offerings now available for Yahoo!7 visitors. “The partnership with realestate.com.au forms the final piece of a trifecta of listings agreements for Yahoo!7 encompassing employment and jobs, motoring and now property. Through this partnership with realestate.com.au our visitors will have access to Australia’s largest property listings portal.”

[1] Source: Nielsen NetView Panel, March 2010

[1] Source: Nielsen Market Intelligence, Australia, March 2010″

I recently commented on this site, about whether Domain.com.au had experienced an increase in traffic since taking over the ninemsn partnership back in November 2008 after the REA Group decided not to continue their previous agreement with ninemsn?

Obviously, REA’s move away from ninemsn has had a detrimental effect on traffic to their site, to subsequently bring on this partnership with Yahoo!7.

At this early stage I can only see this as a positive move from both Realestate.com.au and Yahoo!7. But I’d be interested to hear Business2 readers thoughts on this move.

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”.

In Part 1 of this series, I covered how to get the best coverage for your agency within the Find An Agent Section settings and in Part 2 I discussed an important internet marketing strategy where you can improve the number of visits you can get to your listings.

In that article I also covered 3 simple internet marketing concepts, the first of which was ‘The Image Catches Their Eye’ which leads me to…

You Lost Me At ‘Hello’

Have you ever seen that part in the movie Jerry Maguire where Renee Zellweger says to Tom Cruise “You had me at Hello?” If not, here’s a quick snippet from the movie.

Well, with this phrase in mind, I can not stress how important it is to grab a buyer or sellers attention over the web, especially on realestate.com.au.

Ultimately, you want to aim to ‘Have them at hello too’ which means that they will continue to keep reading about your listing.

The ‘Hello’ part is so important over the web, because with a woman you have somewhere between 2 – 4 seconds to grab their attention, whereas for a male, it’s 5 – 7 seconds, yet unbelievably there are still a number of agents who are committing the cardinal sin on realestate.com.au.

What’s the cardinal sin on realestate.com.au?

I find it astounding in today’s world of digital photography, that some agents are still uploading their listings onto realestate.com.au without any images of the property at all.

What’s more, realestate.com.au don’t allow listings to be uploaded to their site unless their is an image & some agents actually go out of their way to upload a generic image instead, just to get the listing up onto the realestate.com.au site.

Some agents must be in such a hurry to get the property uploaded onto the web on a Friday afternoon, before the receptionist goes home, that they upload the listing without photos, without considering the damaging consequences.

Maybe the owner is super keen to have the property uploaded before the weekend, but uploading any listing onto realestate.com.au without photos of the property is a huge mistake.

The image is such a big attention grabber and having no image could actually put the ideal buyer off.

Plus, lots of potential sellers subscribe to email alerts and if they see a property that is poorly marketed by an agent then they could easily be put off from listing with that agent.

It’s the biggest database in Australian real estate – Use it.

REA has the biggest real estate database within Australia & they have hundreds of thousands of people who have subscribed to receive email alerts when new listings come onto the market within their chosen criteria.

Realestate.com.au include the first email notification via their email alert service at no extra cost to the agent. It’s part of the subscription fees & is a very affective part of an agent’s marketing strategy for matching properties to suitable buyers.

Now, if an agent uploads a listing without the property photos & wants to access the REA’s database to re-send the property details out with photos now uploaded, they have to pay (normally hundreds of dollars) to send out one of REA’s e-Brochures.

Even though you could always pay to re-send the property out to REA’s database via the e-Brochure in an attempt to try to rectify the initial mistake, you’ll never get a second chance to create that great first impression.

No matter what the circumstances, an agent should ‘never’ upload a listing onto realestate.com.au without photos of the property.

Quick Tip: To get the greatest exposure for your listing as it is emailed out as an email alert to the REA database, make sure you set your price guides within the admin section as far apart as you feel that you comfortably can without misrepresenting the price.

This will allow you to broaden your marketing out to potential buyers in a lower price range who may end up deciding to increase their spending range and/or market to buyers in a higher price bracket that may consider reducing the amount they want to spend on a property.

But, make sure you reset the price range within the system within the first week after the first email alert has been sent, as by this time you’ll probably have direct feedback from buyers and you should have an even better indication of the properties real price point in the market.

Obviously, use your common sense, sending an $800,000 listing to buyers with $300,000 to spend isn’t going to win you any friends.

Reading between the lines Google, REA & Domain could stand to make a lot of money out of this deal. My theory is that a deal could be happening based around an Adsense style commission paid to REA & Domain.

Google makes most of its money through Pay Per Click advertising.

As PPC advertising became more & more popular Google ended up with more ads than ad impressions simply because people rarely searched past the first page on Google.

To solve this problem Google came up with Adsense. This enabled Google’s ads to appear on external websites by paying the website owner a percentage of the advertising revenue generated from their site.

Since launching real estate search on Google Maps, Google have been able to expand their potential online advertising space at the mind blowing rate of approx. 1 million pages.

For example, when you click on any one of the listings on Google Maps & then click the More Info link you’ll see 4 tabs – Overview, Details, Photos & Web Pages.

On each of these pages there is a vacant area to the right or at the bottom that is just screaming out for the Sponsored Links to appear.

If you look closely on the Web Pages page you’ll notice that as more sites feed their listings on, more Web Pages links like Homehound, MyHome, the agents website, etc appear down the page. This automatically expands the currently vacant area on the right hand side of this page. Just waiting for Google to turn on the Sponsored Links switch.

At first I couldn’t understand why Google would display numerous feeds for the one listing but now I get it.

The whole thing is a brilliantly devised concept by Google to expand their PPC advertising space. They’ve even designed it in such a way that they get 4 or 5 pages of advertising per property listing.

With Google reporting hundreds of thousands of listings being uploaded since the launch that adds up to approx. 1 million pages that they can now advertise on, with a lot more on their way as they roll this concept out globally.

And with total control over where they place their sponsored links Google will want every listing they can get. That’s why Google won’t charge agents to upload their listings & it’s also the reason why they will allow private sellers.

When you think about it REA & Domain have virtually all the online listings in Australia & getting a feed from them would be extremely lucrative to Google & will add millions of extra pages to their site, so it makes sense that Google will probably pay an Adsense style of commission to REA & Domain to have their listings feed.

So all I’m wondering now is what’s the deal? And how much more money do REA & Domain stand to make out of real estate agents’ listings?

Well what a year it has been, with just about every major company in the real estate and classifieds market vying for entry into this years awards.

So how do you make our dumb and dumber awards? Well quite simply, you make a schoolboy mistake, try to cover something up or worse still knowingly do something that is so obviously dumb to everyone else aside from your inner sanctum.

So here is our list for this year, enjoy!

1. WINNER – REA Group – Realestate.com.au

What do you do when one of your email servers have hundred’s of thousands’s of property email enquiries stuck and not delivered for months and months on end to real estate agents battling through tough times? Well for starters some bright spark decided we will just deliver them to agents who had no clue of the age of the emails! Once the story broke here on business2.com.au REA then went into damage control and placed a note in agent admin and then later sent out an email explaining the situation to unsuspecting agents. This left agents embarrassed – their reputations tarnished and having to apologise to ten’s of thousand’s of enquirers.

REA offered a heartfelt apology, discussed compensation, but decided to just weather the storm and continue business as usual. REA’s reputation for care has never been worse and will take a hell of a lot of work to win back agents trust. More price rises to come will not help their cause. Fluffy promotional emails will not do anything either, hard work, improved customer service and some humility will help.

2. RUNNER UP – PBL & Microsoft

Get a photo op with a bunch of Steve Jobs wannabes on launch, spend ten’s of millions of dollars marketing a website with out-of-date and sold listings, less than 30% of your rivals listings (and the same data), do buddy deals with a handful of the major franchise groups along with the worst real estate interface to come out of the 21st century and what do you get? Well you get them running scared and selling it off in 12 months for less than 3% of what they put into it. Still it has to be one of his better deals since he took over from daddy. If you want to know how NOT to build and launch a real estate portal, note the myhome.com.au debacle. The new owners are trying their best and have really got back to basics. May be worth the try now!

3. Major Telcos

Put together pathetic customers service, disgraceful data plans, slow networks and you have yourself a major Telco. Telstra may have the best wireless Internet in Australia, but it has the most expensive – restrictive plans around and Optus is not much better. It pays big time to look around. Maybe Telstra should spend some time and money on the people that make them money rather than trying to protect their monopoly. Optus does not fare much better and you only have to look into the Whirpool forums to see how many people loath their Telcos.

4. The Financial Meltdown

Oh, how we were once impressed by our finance market friends driving their Maserati’s and Porsches, how we listened to their amazing insights into how the money markets worked, how impressed we were about how they speculate and how their models make everyone rich and successful. Turns out they were all pretty much clueless, having fancy degrees on a wall means nothing if you don’t have real world smarts. If making money is your only goal then you will eventually fail, problem is – this time around everyone suffered.

It is ok to strive for an open market economy, but should mum and dads around the world have to bail them out when it all goes pear-shaped?

5. Get it ‘FREE’ Mobile Domain

SMS property alerts on your mobile, great idea and absolutely free – well free as in 0.55 cents an SMS. Ooops sorry forgot to mention that! ACCC noted this and slapped Fairfax over the knuckles.

6. REA’s Peak Industry Body

Way way back in March 2007 (nearly 2 years ago, REA setup ‘The Peak Industry Body’, this was no doubt an effort to ‘connect’ with you, ‘Joe the Plumber’, meeting ‘at least’ 6 times a year would equate to around 24 meetings so far. I think each meeting ended with a Hollowmen ‘steady as she goes approach’ because unless I am mistaken nothing has ever come out of this – except continual price rises

7. Internet Explorer

To every single software/website or so called IT expert that only works in Internet Explorer or in the latter case only only allows you to use IE6, hang your heads in shame. Every time I use Internet Explorer I am frustrated, whether it is testing sites in IE6 or 7 and now IE8.

The latest debacle for Internet Explorer came just a few days ago.

The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 5.01, Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, and Internet Explorer 7.

Basically anyone could access your PC and take anything they liked. Microsoft stated that it is always looking at ways to improve their product, no, they are always looking at ways to get it to at least work. One friend of mine lost $4,800 just yesterday and is scrambling to get it back because someone hacked their PC.

So free yourself from the train wreck of a browser which is Internet Explorer and jump with Firefox, Opera, Safari or Google Chrome and leave, buggy, slow, insecure software behind. If your software provider can’t cut it, then leave them behind as well.

Note: Also read some reviews on anti virus software and get it installed on all pc’s.

8. Why are we waiting?

Google needs to get its act together and release a solution that the whole market is waiting for. Every day I am asked the question and each day I have no answer. I know they are working on it – but come on guys and girls. Worldwide the advertisers market for a stand-alone real estate website from Google would be worth billions and billions of dollars of new advertising revenue.

9. Yellow Pages

Time to get a new advertising campaign, no one really cares about you any more and the campaigns warning us of impending financial gloom if we do not advertise with you just don’t cut it any more. Rising costs, hundreds of thousands of books dumped in rubbish bins or left rotting in the rain – and a business model that just plain sucks. And don’t get me started on Yellow Pages Online.

10. Newspapers

I love newspapers, I really do, they serve a great part of discussion in our community, but if you think articles about Nicole Kidman’s lips or Brad and Angelina are going to lift your readership think again. Newspapers need to rebuild their classifieds to suit a new market. Once upon a time agents pushed newspaper advertising for them, only a few do now and the market is getting smaller by the day. Keep this up and classified newspapers are finished. Simple test, get two people, one in a newspaper and one online to find a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom property in Wagga Wagga.

Solution?
1. Rebuild your classifieds for ease of use.
2. Offer annual subscriptions at a loss to build base readership – $10.
3. Get into real property journalism that gets people talking. (not paid for fluff promos)

11. New Real Estate Portals

So you want to help agents get away from REA and Domain? No you don’t, you want to make money and sell out to one or the other once you have some success. Oh and $10,000 you have committed does not build you a national portal – not even built off shore. So, stop telling me you care and how exciting your product is and do the hard yards, start local and build out, and your systems had better be good!

12. Kevin Rudd

Oh Kevin you had us all, you promised so much, you work long hours and impress us with grandiose words like ‘education revolution’. Here’s the thing, deep down inside you know you are boring, we do too, but we knew that already, we just want you to make a difference, we want some bold initiatives – not only for this industry but for Australia. In 2009 there is to be no more buck passing, no more ‘we are not immune’.

We didn’t know what cards you had, we thought it must have been good, 3 deuces in the hand? A straight? A full house? A flush? A straight flush? If we find out all you had was a piddly small pair – you will be out with the bathwater. So get down and dirty, make some bold reforms and get this country back on track.

13. Printed Local Property Guides

Every week about 24 local newspapers are dumped on our doorstep (we only have 12 apartments) and every week about 23 of them end up in the trash. You all thought it was a great idea to launch a property guide. How wrong it has all turned out to be. I will give you all less than 12 months. When vendors clearly say no to agents about advertising in local newspapers you know you are in trouble, my bet is that you will keep thinking you can turn it around.

14. Agent Websites

I spent a day trawling through agent websites randomly a few days ago. I looked at over 500 sites. Ouch, apart from seeing about 100 websites that are exactly the same (template sites), so many do not work in all major browsers. Here is a hint, if newspapers are no longer viable in this climate for marketing, where is your differentiator? Yes its your website! If you have a good one, then let every vendor know about it and ask them to compare. If you don’t – then you only have yourself to blame.

15. Vanity Blogging

Everyone is getting into blogging and you should be too. However steer clear of chest thumping and telling everyone how wonderful you and your company are – because no one is listening. Write about what you know and your opinions on the market, promote local businesses and get everyone involved. Welcome dissent, as long as it is not abusive or profane – promote it.

16. Vanity Boards

If agents need a pointer as to why some people think sign boards at the front of homes for sale and rent are more about the promoting real estate agents than the properties they are promoting then look no further than those ‘look at me boards’ promoting massive pictures of agents and in most cases nothing about the property. Ok, we get it, you absolutely love yourselves and it is cheaper than billboards but just let it go, the will to want to do it, should be enough of a sign that you have lost the plot.

17. Channels 7, 9,10

So you have your own little ratings system which bears no semblance to actual figures (good to keep that ad revenue coming in) however you are all finished unless you adapt. Showing old series just doesn’t cut it (a lot of people download the new series anyway), blatant chest thumping is so 1980′s and no innovation means a slow grinding death. Think about digital, get together, innovate with set top boxes supported by all and create a new market for direct localisation of ad serving.

18. Advertising Agencies

If you want to know who NOT to listen to when it comes to marketing your products or services just look at advertising agencies. I had a taste of them in the late 90′s and thought I would go through the process again, hoping they had learnt something about the Internet since then. I am not going to name the agencies, but if the group I met are any indication, stay well away, save your money and do it yourself!

19. James Packer

James oh James, what a business you inherited, tv networks, magazines, prime Internet locations, casinos and the list goes on. Here’s an idea, lets build a business our family empire will be proud of, lets dump just about everything we have built over the years and just get into gambling. What a noble business to be in and what a time to do it? We never cared to much about how rich you were, we liked Kerry, he was like one of us, we loved his stories (even if they were myths) and we liked you. If all you want to do is make money – then good luck to you – but you only have a few billion left buddy!

20. Mobile Agents Angst

So you have a local competitor that does not have an office (road warrior) – get over it. This is the 21st century and mobile agents working from home or on the road are going to be a lot more common over the coming years. If you use your office as a springboard to connect with vendors and buyers then you have nothing to worry about.

21. Real Estate Institutes

Can someone tell me what these organisations actually do?

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our readers, see you all again in 2009!