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 ZealandThe 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?
3 Comments
Alistair Helm
Peter,
Let me jump right in here and answer these questions. NZ is unique I think in the world in having in the realestate.co.nz website an industry owned site that is the leading specialist real estate website in the country.
Certainly we do not pull the massive audience that Trade Me attract – but then trade me is part of the NZ DNA – it is the largest website in NZ – offering everything from cars to guns to iPods, to secondhand clothes, in the midst of all of this is the listing of property.
What we have done with realestate.co.nz over the past 2 years is built a great website that protects and supports this industry from the aggressive media ambitions of the likes of Fairfax (who owns Trade Me) as they endeavour to safeguard their advertising relationship with the real estate industry as print become less relevant and attractive to the industry.
The real estate industry has supported us over these years as we have held around 90% of all offices as subscribers. This has meant that the site is the most comprehensive website in NZ for real estate listings – 113,000 today far in excess of any other site.
As to fees – we have always charged a totally transparent subscription – every office pays $200 per month. No discounts – just great service. We have built our consumer traffic from 170,000 to 270,000 unique browsers in the past 2 years far ahead of the industry growth. Our business model and principle is to make a profit – we are a commercial company but servicing and supporting our customers comes first and that is why we have never increased fees, we seek to build our business through added value services and advertising.
As a final comment and as reflection of the transparent manner in which we operate the website and as a demonstration of this just read the Unconditional blog, the terms of this alliance recognise the value we will gain, but also the value to REA Group – this is a marketing opportunity and therefore we have constructed a commercial agreement – naturally the terms of which are confidential, having said that we recognise the value the investment in such relevant and qualified traffic that we will receive from the REA Group sites.
Robert Simeon
A bit sheepish for me 🙂
Peter Ricci
Robert Robert Robert!