A week or so ago I was invited to today’s launch of Comm Bank’s Property Guide iPhone App (application). When I got the invite, I was interested and sceptical all at the same time (how can a bank make an industry leading property App), but intrigue, and the promise of a good breakfast, got the better of me and I went along.

Firstly, I have to say that the App itself is very impressive. I love iPhone Apps that “use” the functionality of the handset. Too many Apps are just conservative, dry extensions of the company’s website (see Domain’s App as a good example of this). They’re functional, they do a job, but are pretty uneventful, never interactive and pretty boring. The Comm Bank App uses every ounce of the handset’s horse power, and is the better for it.

Augmented reality (using the camera, GPS and orientation gizmo) is mind blowing, user friendly and very useful. During the live demo they took us outside and we stood outside a property that was for sale, pointed the camera at the property, and everything came to life…… so much information at your fingertips. You can search in more traditional ways, but the AR was the real show stopper.

Secondly, another masterstroke is buddying up with RPData and realestate.com.au for content. I’ll let you download it and judge for yourself, but it’s the sort of App that one of the portals SHOULD have created, and didn’t.

I applaud Comm Bank for a job well done (and for the great coffee at the launch).

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Yesterday, Greg Ellis, CEO/Managing Director presented an inside look of some of the features of the new site to a large group of agents at the realestate.com.au ‘Open For Inspection’ event in Sydney.

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”.

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Slowly but surely Google Real Estate is making inroads into the Australian real estate market with the recent signing of LJ Hooker on top of most of the major players in real estate in Australia. It will take longer for all of the smaller independent agents to come onboard, however it is clear that this is the beginning of a new era and it is time REA and Domain stepped up to the plate and opened themselves up to the Google way of life!

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.

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There are strong rumours circulating that Realestate.com.au will be launching a new site in early March 2010. What this site will look like is any one’s guess?

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?

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When Google ventured into real estate listings many of us thought it would signal the end of annual fee increases being charged by the likes of realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. I mentioned how it will eventually force these organisations to change their business models and build simpler, smarter platforms and I still do!

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.

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