The REA Group have announced an alliance with Realestate.co.nz hot on the heels of announcing the withdrawal of allrealestate.co.nz. This means all traffic from allrealestate.co.nz will be pushed to realestate.co.nz.

There seems to be back pats all round on this one. I do wonder how this will help agents in New Zealand as my maths tells me more competition = better service = cheaper prices and of course more innovation.

I don’t yet know how this model works and what incomes REA do get from this deal, but it will probably be a % of revenue. Or maybe they will just pump the fees up now there is less competition.

Here is the press release:

14 November 2008

The REA Group and Realestate.co.nz Ltd
Form Alliance in New Zealand

The REA Group and Realestate.co.nz Ltd have formed an alliance. Under the terms of the alliance, the REA Group will close its residential portal (allrealestate.co.nz) on 30 November 2008 and direct its traffic to realestate.co.nz.

The alliance gives realestate.co.nz access to the more than 9.7 million unique browsers a month*–including more than 4 million in Australia alone–who use the REA Group’s international network of real estate websites. These browsers will be able to access realestate.co.nz from a tab on the home page of every REA Group portal and from the map of New Zealand on the REA Group websites.

Alistair Helm, CEO of realestate.co.nz, said:
“This alliance is great news for New Zealand’s real estate agents and consumers; because together with the REA Group we can run a much stronger real estate web portal than if we continued to compete as two separate portals. We believe this will mean a more efficient and cost competitive solution for the real estate industry as compared to all other media options.”

Shaun Di Gregorio, General Manager–Emerging Business Group, of the REA Group, said:
“We expect our alliance with Realestate.co.nz will better serve the country’s real estate agents and consumers–and buyers overseas who are interested in New Zealand property. We have decided that in the long term it doesn’t make business sense for us to operate our own residential real estate site in the country.”

The REA Group will continue to operate unchanged its New Zealand commercial real estate portal, realcommercial.co.nz.

About the Realestate.co.nz
Realestate.co.nz Ltd is a Joint venture company owned in equal shares by The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) and Property Page (NZ) Ltd, a company owned by 6 of the largest real estate companies. The website is the most comprehensive website for real estate in NZ with over 112,000 listings, attracting over 90% of all licensed real estate offices to utilise the website which reaches an audience of over 260,000 unique browsers per month.**

About the REA Group
The REA Group, headquartered in Melbourne, operates Australia’s most popular real estate websites. In total, it publishes 22 websites and eight print publications in 10 countries. The REA Group had revenues of AUD$156m in FY 2008, has more than 9.7 million unique visitors each month* and is profitable. As a listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange (REA), realestate.com.au Ltd operates as an independent entity.

Your thoughts?

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Update: The REA Application has been passed by IP Australia, however this still can be rejected and is under review. There has been objection raised and now it will go to a hearing. The closing date for objections is nearing completion. If the trademark is successful then any legal matters are between the two parties concerned.

Realestate.com.au Limited (REA) has applied to register “realestate.com.au” as a trade mark for a very wide range of services relating to real estate, including ‘Real estate affairs’, ‘financial services’ and ‘advertising of real estate in electronic and printed format’. If this proceeds through it will be registered by the Australian Trade Mark Office.

I have received quite a few emails on this very subject. Here is an excerpt from one of these emails.

The Australian Trade Mark Office usually ignores “.com” or “.com.au” in assessing applications. In practical terms, the application for “realestate.com.au” is effectively an attempt to trade mark “realestate”. I currently control the domain name xxxrealestate.com.au. A lawyer working for REA has sent me a letter requiring me to “cease use of the domain name “xxxrealestate.com.au” (or any other name that includes “realestate.com.au”) and arrange for the transfer of that domain name to REA”. I have not responded to the letter. I know of at least 300 other domain names, perhaps your’s, that includes “realestate.com.au”

The email above has been going around the traps and points to a certain website receiving a notice from REA asking them to cease using this domain. I spoke with IP Australia today and not surprisingly they actually told me that they have had a great deal of response and any media enquiries for this Trademark are directed to one person, who has not returned my calls. However, I did get to have a brief conversation with one of their staff members.
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