All too often we see new real estate portals arrive, telling us just how amazing they are and extolling the evil virtues of the major portals. Over the past few years a little known real estate portal has grown into a site that really is starting to kick along.
The site thepropertymanager.com.au is a site for management rights that basically targets real estate agents who either specialise in management rights or handle these from time to time (mainly the former) and their goal is to have all of the agencies that specialise in management rights listed on their site by 2010 (approximately 50).
Now I am not sure how well the systems work but it is a great example of why there are still many niche areas that are yet untapped.
As for the interface it is a little confusing, I really did not know ‘who’ or what the website is for and I think this needs to be addressed (should really say in a few words on home page what it is and who it is for). I also think we the website is a little too messy and needs a professional interface designers (www.cssbeauty.com will get you one) to identify key targets and create a more user friendly approach as for me it is a little overwhelming.
But once given an explanation it hit me – what a great little idea. I asked Nick from the Property Managers to explain a little about the site and here is a short extract of what he sent me.
Management Rights are the rights to act as the onsite property manager of a resort, apartment tower, retirement village, commercial property, etc. Management Rights therefore consist of both a property title (like any other real estate listing) as well as a business sale. These Management Rights are first sold by the Developer and are then typically traded every few years via specialized Real Estate Agents. It is this niche section of the Real Estate industry that we identified and targeted for ThePropertyManager.com.au back in 2005.
Our audience is primarily onsite managers. Typically older people, 45+ through to semi-retirement age. Some are already managers of other complexes. Others are professionals seeking a semi-retirement sea change. There are approximately 3000 licensed managers operating in QLD – unsure of national numbers but I would assume QLD would be the highest due to its resort industry.
Our clients are Real Estate Agents who specialize in the sale of Management Rights. These clients need to list their Management Rights online and seek to reach the highly specialized audience of onsite residential and resort managers.
All in all it is a great start for the property manager in a niche market that is really dominated by classifieds newspapers (expensive and almost always difficult to navigate through) and to some extent covered slightly on major commercial portals.
Even if the majors decided to build something into their own portals, I really do not think they could compete against a small, nimble opponent like this who already receives thousands of visitors a week.
2 Comments
Nick
Nice wrap – Cheers Peter :).
You are right, look is still a bit haphazard. I think its because there’s no workflow clearly indicated in the navigation so its hard to see where a user should ‘start’. Ideally, I should take a step back and outsource the interface, its so hard to design well when you don’t have a client breathing down your neck.
I think if we tabulate primary nav so users can more clearly choose and drill into what they want to do this will help. Simplifying and spacing the elements a bit better will probably clean it up a bit too. Framework is all CSS based so can be swapped out with relative ease. It just has to happen slowly so as not to spook existing users.
Thanks again for the thoughts – I appreciate anyone elses ideas here too.
Nick
Hey Peter, we’ve revised the interface to get the site a little more intuitive and orderly looking. Its weird, when you look at a site for too long you can’t tell if it looks bad or not.
Hows this looking now? any thoughts?