To introduce myself, my name is Sean Wyld and I work for Google as the Industry Manager in their Local & Classifieds team in Australia. I’ve been reading Business2 for the past couple of months and am excited about sharing some insights into the role ‘search’ plays in the real estate industry. For my first post, as you probably gathered from the title, I thought I’d start with something seasonal.
During this time of year, most people are more focused on Christmas shopping then visiting open for inspections and with the last weekend of auctions for the year only days away, most real estate agents are preparing to put their cues back in the rack for the seasonal slow-down over the Christmas period.
However as we all know the Internet never sleeps, being available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So with 87% of Australian home buyers/sellers now using the Internet as part of their research process (Nielsen Australian Property Report 2008), the question of how Christmas affects their usage of the Internet is something which all real estate agents should be considering.
