You would be forgiven for thinking real estate is all online these days  it dominates the landscape that much and online the search engines are the first port of call for property related traffic.  Just after leaving Simon Baker confirmed that even realestate.com.au received massive traffic, somewhere over 30% from Google which is just one search engine.

Portals and particularly the top two paid portals absolutely saturate the search engine results by investing heavilly in SEO teams. They take the listings data of real estate agents and combine it with questionable tactics to create millions and millions of pages across multiple domains. This tactic effectively blocks real estate agent websites from search engine results thus starving us from direct enquiry.

These tactics by the portals is highly questionable and is evidence of the power they have developed in our industry. We are charged to display our listings on the portals and in return we are restricted to what we can display. We are not allowed to link back to our own website on each listing. We cant put contact details or phone numbers in the body text of the ad. Breach the rules and they will remove the property, do it too many times and they threaten to kick you off.  Any links they do give you and the portals insert ‘no-follow tags’ on the links back to the agent websites which tells the search engines to ignore our websites and that they have no value.

They justify that enquiry by charging higher and higher monthly fees but the problem in this relationships are more than the monthly subscription charges. also a death of thousand cuts it goes further than that with the portals undertaking lead generation schemes whereby they intercept sellers on the site and sell those leads back to agents at inflated rates. The traffic that agents have helped create is being used to promote private listings on Domain and now even realestate.com.au.

I believe that Realestate.com.au would generate more traffic than all the large national real estate groups combined. Agents have effectively given control of their listing enquiries to the portals and now seller leads to two large media companies who have taken every opportunity and they will not give up that control easily.

Real estate groups are also suffering as agents around the country have rather cut their ties with head office rather than their realestate.com.au and/or domain.com.au subscriptions. Joining a large real estate franchise or marketing group once respresented a great differentiator from other agencies in your area. If you listen to the portal sales team the only way to differentiate your agency now is to pay more and more for feature properties, feature all, brochure all and all the other add on products. Real Estate groups are seen to be providing an ever diminishing value to their franchisees and members.

As real estate agents we have given them our listing data and our money willingly for years but the level of antipathy from agents seems to rise year on year at pace equal to the price rise.

With the 2012 realestate.com.au price rise just about to be released rumours are rife that its going to be the biggest one yet. So more and more real estate agents are going to be asking themselves the magical question more than ever — Can I survive without a realestate.com.au subscription?

Cutting the umbilical cord to the subscription based portals is always going to be difficult especially since we have essentially been starved of enquiry on our own websites by the SEO teams at the portals. Cutting that link would be extremely difficult and disasterous without an extremely effective e-marketing strategy in place covering SEO, PPC, Social Media and Email Marketing.

Australian real estate agents are not alone in asking if they can survive without syndicating their content to a national portal. In the USA agents have been cutting that cord from syndicating to their national portals. Edina Realty and Shorewest Realty in Wisconsin were among the first but the one group that has recently got the USA market buzzing is ARG. Abbott Realty Group (ARG) recently announced that they will no longer syndicate listings to third-party aggregators like Trulia, Zillow and Realtor.com.

Watch this video from ARG as they justify their decision to cut the umbilical cord. I think they do a great job in explaining their decision.

]]> http://glennbatten.com/real-estate-group-blocks-syndication-to-national-property-portals/feed/ 0 http://glennbatten.com/rebarcamp-concept-takes-off-in-australia/ http://glennbatten.com/rebarcamp-concept-takes-off-in-australia/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:35:54 +0000 Glenn http://glennbatten.com/rebarcamp-concept-takes-off-in-australia/ With a name like BarCamp it’s no wonder Aussie’s have taken strongly to the concept but an REBarCamp is not really about a bunch of real estate agents hanging out in the bar.

A BarCamp is a user-generated conferences that is full of open participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants.  A REBarCamp is a barcamp for real estate agents.

One of the most often words to describe a barcamp is an unconference.

A typical real estate conference has a lineup of paid speakers and a strict agenda to follow whereas with an unconference there are no scheduled presentations or paid speakers. The day’s agenda is actually decided during the morning registration period by attendees submitting possible sessions that they’d like to participate in or lead.

The sessions are divided up into different groups, and organized by skill level, relevance and potential popularity. Typical subjects for a REBarCamp might include Blogging, WordPress Plugins, Video Blogging, iPad Presentations, SEO, Cloud Computing, Social Media 101 for Agents and making the most of your Smartphone.

Organising the days agenda

Just as the “social” experience has taken over much of what we do on the internet an unconference is a conference with big injection of social into it.  The attendees not only create the conference and participate it.

I love a quote from Mike Meuller in the states on the REBarCamp concept when he said:-

“In purist terms, a REBarCamp experience should be the single biggest learning event you attend all year (assuming you attend only one).  Yes, there are exceptions to the rule and every REBC is different, but if you attend a REBC and think it wasn’t worth every minute of your time there’s only one person to blame.”

The first BarCamp was created and organized in one week in 2005 in the US and the first REBarCamp was held in San Fransisco just 3 years ago. Since then over 300 events have been held throughout the US and this year the concept moved to Australia. Sydney was the first Australian REBarCamp, followed recently by Perth and on November 30th  the first Queensland event at Brisbane will be held at the Pineapple Hotel.

REBarCamp Sydney held earlier this year

I am one of the organisers for REBarCamp Brisbane so if you are going to be in BrisVegas at the end of November we would love you to join in on the discussion but you better be quick and register.  You can read more information about the Brisbane event on its’s Facebook Page and Peter Brewer’s recent blog post.

Other REBarcamps are in the planning stages so if you did not make it to Sydney or Perth and cant get to Brisbane keep an eye out for the next event in your area at www.rebarcamp.com.au

Did you attend REBarCamp Sydney or REBarCamp Perth??  Let us know your experience!

Originally posted at the : Business2 Blog. Please visit Business2 to read all comments to the original article.

Masters Home Improvement is  operated by a joint venture between Australian Retailer Woolworths Limited and U.S. Based hardware chain, Lowe’s. The Nerang Masters store is located just a few hundred metres from it’s arch rival Bunnings which is owned by the Wesfarmers group.

Construction on the brand new 14,000 m2 Masters Nerang store has been completed and Masters local staff are preparing for the store opening in mid to late October 2011. The store features a Trade Area, Large Retail Area, Nursery Area, McDonalds and Administrative Offices on the second level.

As the Nerang Masters stores readies for its opening Australia’s first  Masters store in Braybrook, Victoria, opened just two weeks ago to the public.

The new Masters Nerang store differentiates itself from Bunnings in a few different ways:

• Staff will be trained for at least 100 hours
• Stores will offer over 35,000 products.
• Stores which are more brightly lit, more colourful with polished concrete, large colour signage and store displays
• Stores aim to place more emphases on attracting female shoppers
• Buzzers scattered around the store which when pressed, will send a nearby staff member to that location to help out a customer’
• Stores will sell more ‘non hardware’ lines such as whitegoods
• Stores will feature a McDonald’s restaurants.

Originally posted at the : Nerang First National Blog

Here  are some of the best ways to find the best real estate agent in your area to sell your property”

For Sale Signs

The amount of for sale signs in your immediate area that any particular agent is no guarantee of a successful agent at all.  In fact in the current market conditions there are plenty of agents not making any sales at all in any given month.  Consider that every property offered for sale with an agent that does not sell is actually a failed marketing campaign.  In short, you should not care at all if an agent has more “for sale” signs in your immediate area as there are better indicators of the best real estate agent.

Good Agents Educate You on the Market and Don’t Beg For Listings

Many agents will stuff your mailboxes with flyers, recipe cards, calendars or business cards all begging for your business.  The best real estate agent in your area will keep you up to date with real estate market including relevant news, property for sale and recent sales but they wont constantly beg for your  listing.  They get listings because of their success rather than dropping a flyer in your letterbox every week.

You Want an Agent that Sells Houses

You only need to be interested in what they sell so when you need to start paying particular attention to the sold signs. A sold sign is the best proof you need in a real estate agent and many successful sales over recent months and years is exactly what you are looking for .

Check Out Their Trophy Cabinet

Success leaves clues and often that translates into stocked trophy cabinet of awards.   When you are comparing two or more agents there are a few simple rules to remember

• Industry awards are across all real estate groups and franchises and are much more superior than an award from just one real estate group.
• Real Estate Awards for a real estate group are better from larger groups with hundreds of members than smaller groups.
• National Awards are better than state awards which are better than regional or city awards.
• Agency awards are better than awards for just one salesperson.
• An award that covers a whole year is better than one that covers a quarter which is again better than an award for a single month.
• Recent Awards are more relevent that old awards that may no longer be indicative.

Checkout their Website and Online Presence

A great agent will have a great website, one that provides more than just property for sale and property for rent. You could hardly expect an agent that has a stock standard template website provided by their franchise group to go that extra mile for you if they havent bothered to invest in their own website.

With online e-marketing playing an enormous role you can expect the  best real estate agent in your area to be maintaining a blog, an e-newsletter and to have a presence on Twitter and Facebook.

Quality Assurance

Many agents have documented policies and procedures but very few take it further and get those policies audited and approved to International ISO 9001 standards.

Visit Their Office

 To really get a feel for the office sometimes the only way is to visit the office. Interviewing agents in your home can only ever give you part of the picture.  An office visit can highlight vast differences in the location, size and professionalism of an office that is not so apparent in your lounge room.

]]> http://glennbatten.com/how-to-identify-the-best-real-estate-agent-in-your-area/feed/ 0 http://glennbatten.com/hootsuite-for-real-estate-agents/ http://glennbatten.com/hootsuite-for-real-estate-agents/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:22:30 +0000 Glenn http://glennbatten.com/?p=563 Hootsuite is an excellent social media dashboard that allows you to manage social media accounts including multiple Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Pages, Linkedin, Foursquare accounts and much much more.

They have recently released a industry guide for real estate agents on how to make the most of using Hootsuite.

RPData have been working on a valuation system similar to US portal Zillow in the USA where they provide a valuation to consumers.  Naturally this has upset real estate agents and valuers alike around the country. There are a couple of differences though but the primary one is that Zillow clearly identifies that the prices they provide are just estimates by calling them “Zestimates”.  Statistical guesses if you will.

It seems that RPData has removed the references to the word valuation since their launch but they still imply it with the claim ”Want to know what a home is really worth?”

This AVM (Automated Valuation Model) application is a feature on the RPData facebook fan page and allows anybody to track 3 properties for 6 months.

Really Worth??  …are they sure??.. because they contradict themselves when you start  using it with this additional information later in the process.

 This estimate is computer generated and is not a professional appraisal. It uses complex modeling which includes property attributes, recent sales information and other data elements to reach an estimate of the property value and possible value range. The model also provides an estimate of how confident the value tracker is likely to be based on the availability of key data elements such as the attributes of the home and depth of recent sales data.

This estimate depends on information relating to the subject property and other properties which may be incomplete or wrong, negatively impacting the accuracy of this estimate. This estimate is based on one or more statistical models and assumptions, which may not capture all relevant factors or features of the subject property. This estimate also does not take into account the potential impact of external factors (such as a change in the economy, future planned infrastructure or environmental contamination on the subject property), which may affect the value of the subject property. Accordingly, this estimate should not be relied upon by you or any other person, including when making any decision in connection with this or any other property.

We at RP Data value your feedback and our Data Integrity Team are on hand to correct any property data. Please send us an email with the property address and its full attributes to Customercare@rpdata.com and we will assist you.

You just have to look at the recent Optus decision to see just how outrageous claims in marketing hype cannot be protected by the fine print. RPData’s competitors, Pricefinder and APM quickly distanced themselves from such tactics.

The AFR article also covers most of the old ground from the previous two articles for those that missed them plus raises a few issues that we have covered on Business2 already such as the success the ACCC has had with realestate.com.au after complaints by the  agent assisted websites.

More interesting though is the reference to the Redfin model that Ben raises in the article.

Just like I did in the last article on the ACCC investigation  Ben draws similarity with how realestate.com.au and Redfin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redfin) both have contact with the seller to sell advertising on their portal.  But Ben takes it a little further and more in line with a persistent rumour doing the rounds though the industry at the moment that states that realestate.com.au is looking more directly at the Redfin model, specifically the whole idea of commission sharing. This is of course countered by the numerous statements by Greg Ellis recently that REA will never claim some of the sales commission, an obvious response to the rumours.

When I called Redfin a Portal in the ACCC article, ex REA CEO Simon Baker responded in te comments with :

Your comparison to Redfin is misleading. Redfin is a real estate brokerage (agency) that primarily uses the internet to source leads.

They are not a portal.

They have a discount model and are attempting to change how agents in the US approach selling and marketing real estate.

Redfin do not fit into any box easily in the USA let alone here in Australia.  Whilst I agree with Simon that Redfin technically are not a portal there is far more to it than that as they are a hybrid solution and their offerings differ on location.

They run a website featuring listings from other agents similar to a potal but they also show property and charge commission…  BUT only in just 16 metro areas only… Outside of those areas, and that does leave a lot of the US, they have partner agencies that they generate leads for on their website. The partner agent only pays 15% to Redfin for that lead if they make a sale.

In areas outside of those 16 metro areas I would argue that they are more like a portal than not.   See for yourself at http://www.redfin.com/neighborhood/10157/CA/San-Diego/Loma-Portal  (the word portal in the URL was not lost on me either!)

Personally I cant see how that could easily fit into the Australian market at all. I believe that the strategists at REA would have considered every possibility including this, because I know I would have if it was my company,  I don’t think it has any legs.

A typical real estate transaction in the USA has a sellers agent and a buyers agent for 3% each, totalling a commission of 6%.  Redfin represents the buyer who effectively gets some of the commission back in savings similar to how Refund Home Loans works here in Australia.

Let’s face it, I believe that the moment they took their first listing authority it would take only a few days for 10,000 agents to remove every listing on the portal.

The article also raises something that an anonymous poster, Deepthroat alluded to in previous articles and that was the meeting of Victorian agents at REIV headquarters about the revolt against REA…

REIV cheif Enzo seemed very quick to add that he has not been a part of the meetings and the REIV only provided the meeting rooms as they often do.  Why was he not involved…  because Enzo is the CEO of RealEstateView.com.au if he was involved in discussions you can bet that REA would be calling in the regulators.

As I have said many times in the past since I started to contribute here in 2007 , real estate agents need to control our data and not let companies like Realestate.com.au, RPData and Onthehouse use it from their own benefits as clearly their monetisation models are at our expense.

With the debates starting to focus on RPData I am more convinced than ever that an REI portal website is not THE solution.  I dont think it will do any harm, and I am sure that it can only place more and more pressure on the top two portals but the key to Project Rebellion is control of the data itself, not just sold data, but all data.   If Realestate.com.au, Domain and the data companies did not have unfettered access and the right to sell and trade it amongst themselves then these problems would simply not exist.

It seems that the campaign in Victoria to withhold sales data might have had an unintended victim as agents are not advising of Auction results according to an article in the Sunday Age.  This issue itself  is not new though as if you compare the various Auction Clearence rates quoted by some companies they never seem to agree. Until the regulators legislate that public auction results be made public this will be an ongoing issue.

We should start to get an indication of what the real estate groups and REI’s ase  planning as a response soon.

Originally posted at the : Business2 Blog. Please visit Business2 to read all comments to the original article.

Questions directed at some of Australia’s leading real estate groups have seemed to focus on excessive price rises (see 1,2, 3 and 4) of realestate.com.au and the effectiveness of competition in the real estate online classified space.

Simon Baker, the ex CEO and substantial shareholder in REA has made some interesting comments on this blog recently regarding realestate.com.au prices :

If the franchise groups were serious about competing with realestate.com.au or at least providing a competitive offering, wouldnt they first start internally and attempt to organise group buying of REA subscriptions for their franchisees?

Imagine if all Ray White or LJ Hooker offices got together and negotiated as one for their REA subscriptions (and additional products). I think they would get a better price.

and

the most likely innovation will be suburb based pricing where there is significant differentiation between suburbs in the price paid.

and the most suprising comment from Simon was his take on add on products

The more interesting question is why do people have to buy the premium products? Do they really add value?

Does anybody else find that a little strange?

With all state Real Estate Institutes and the REIA meeting in Perth during the week strategies were again discussed to create a national industry run portal.  David Airey commented on this blog prior to the meeting :

“Sadly the REIA ailed to gain national support from most state institutes to launch or run a national industry owned portal. That’s a sad indictment of the politics that used to exist and allowed the commercial sites to grow around our industry at our expense.”

and

“I’m on the record on many occasions criticising REI’s for this intransigence and for not listening to members.”

But the current momentum in the industry may have changed some minds as all indications are that this roadblock may finally be pulled down and our REI’s finally taking a role that many members thought they would never see and that is the operation of a national industry controlled portal.  But taking on the might of REA would not be easy and one of the strategies being discussed is using the REI’s to feed to the commercial portals with delay of say 3 or 7 days. This would allow REI portals at a state and national level to promote something like “Find it first on  xyz.com.au”.

As this plays out behind closed doors the campaign to withhold sold data from  realestate.com.au is gaining some serious momentum and reports from small and large national real estate groups and portal pushers continue to roll in.

One side effect of withholding sold data from the likes of REA is that data companies like RPData who has paid substantially for this information feed from REA. RPData and other similar companies provide essential data services back to agents but also provide market analysis and review consumed by the nations media. With a strong national portal in place it’s expected that RPData will move to establish arrangements direct with the institutes bypassing REA entirely.

Another thing Ben Hurley has reported on today is the presents and gifts that Realestate.com.au is showering on their biggest spending clients.  With the real estate market slowdown agents have looked to reduce discretionary spending. REA have used things like dinner at high end restaurants, State of Origin games, Business Class flights and even brand new iPads to secure the relationship.  I personally have heard of a sales team being flown interstate to watch the AFL when discussions of reducing their yearly spend was raised.

Realestate.com.au has over 10,000 real estate agents throughout Australia and whilst many agents  spend around $1,000 a month there are offices who spend 10, 20 and even 30  times that amount which is primarily funded by Vendor Paid Advertising (VPA).  Realestate.com.au’s campaign to increase the share of wallet has been right around the country but it has been particularly successful in Melbourne where they have less competition from Domain and high dollar auction campaigns are popular .  As an example the Premier Property option offered by realestate.com.au can cost an owner well over $2,000 per month.

Many in the industry showed increasing concern towards REA’s motives when a video surfaced showing their intention to market direct to buyers and sellers. Check out the video yourself, particularly from 9 min 30sec of this video.

In response Greg Ellis issued a written response which seemed  to contradict itself from paragraph to paragraph. Why his response was not circulated widely by email is unknown but it might have something to do with the fact its easier to watch the video by clicking on the link if it was sent by email. I doubt to many would have typed in that long url.

In the letter he claimed that it was incorrectly reported that he wanted to cut agents out of the loop but then went on to state:

The development of site functionality that allows prospective buyers and sellers to access or claim property information that can be accessed by agents so they can cost effectively identify a new pool of leads.

I am sure I am not the only one that reads this sans spin to be that they are going to escalate their use of agents sold data, listing data and valuer general data to provide additional products to buyers and sellers direct and then sell those leads to agents…. as “cost effectively ” as realestate.com.au can do of course!

In an interesting side note REA reps have now started to sit down with salespeople and sellers in their homes to pitch $2000 a month Premier Property and other options in the marketplace. This appears to be very similar to the Redfin Portal in the US who have a team of salespeople on the ground in capital cities. The primary difference is that Redfin salespeople also present property and take a cut in the commission, something REA have repeatedly claimed they will not do.

REA’s dealings with the ACCC lately has not been good and has seen the scrapping of the Private Listing Policy which finally allows private sellers easy access to list on realestate.com.au.

The drought of sold data would certainly have some sort of effect on future revenue streams and to a certain extent current products but a successful ACCC action and a industry controlled competitor together would provide bad news for Australia’s largest and most successful real estate portal.

It’s going to be a very interesting few months as this all plays out but if it was bad news for REA it’s terrible timing for newcomer Onthehouse. A strong industry portal is not going to be good news for them.  Their original investor document and  subsequent prospectus highlighted the monetisation of client agents data.

The underwriter (and partial owner) took it a step further in their report when they stated :

“Low integration risk, with ongoing data feeds. PortPlus and Console databases are ready to be “plugged in” into OTH’s database. In addition, both businesses do not sell their software – they license it to each customer on a rolling basis. As such, they retain ownership and control over the software and its intellectual property. With the appropriate terms and conditions in place with clients, each business is licensed to access and upload the content that is captured by the software”

Customers of Portplus and Console are already questioning when the terms and conditions are going to change and just where their data is going to end up. I expect their competition will start to raise the issue and use this against them when pitching for business.  Even though the float was over subscribed, in their first month of trading the shares dropped to as low as 60c which must be a huge concern for the original operators of Portplus and Console who are restricted in selling many of their shares for quite some time.

Certainly, the “Noise” is getting louder by the day!   Join in and tell us what you think about the latest developments.

Originally posted at the : Business2 Blog. Please visit Business2 to read all comments to the original article.

Today on the front page of the Australian Financial Review Ben’s article “Real Estate Agents Revolt” appears.

The article discusses hotly debated topics on this blog and its interesting seeing the discussion raised in more mainstream media.   The article covers some great ground and I expect there is more to this story up his sleeve for followup articles.

Some interesting quotes from the article are  :

The major agencies, such as LJ Hooker, Ray White, Raine & Horne and Century 21, are considering using their combined mightto setup rival information suppliers and advertising portals.

“It’s called Project Rebellion,” said David Airey, president of the Real Estate Institute of Australia

Real estate groups including RE/MAX, Professionals and First National are cutting back on the information they provide to REA.

and Ben was able to get some quotes from Greg Ellis, REA Group CEO

“REA will never take a dollar from the commission of selling and listing property, that is the exclusive domain of the real estate agents,”Mr Ellis said.

He said sold-price information was “absolutely a non critical part of the information we provide”.“People are significantly more interested in what their property is worth, which does not come from the sold information alone,” Mr Ellis said. He would not reveal the information used to calculate property values.

Grab a copy of today’s AFR or download the article by clicking here.

If you have anything to add to the story for further followup Ben can be contacted on bhurley@afr.com.au

]]> http://glennbatten.com/project-rebellion-front-page-news/feed/ 0 http://glennbatten.com/realestate-com-au-2011-annual-customer-satisfaction-survey/ http://glennbatten.com/realestate-com-au-2011-annual-customer-satisfaction-survey/#comments Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:19:33 +0000 Glenn http://glennbatten.com/realestate-com-au-2011-annual-customer-satisfaction-survey/ In what seems like remarkable timing,  sitting in my email this morning was an invitation to partake in the Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey for realestate.com.au. Now is the time to let REA know what you think of them, the good and the bad.

The email includes a comment “The survey questionnaire can be completed by personnel who have contact with realestate.com.au” which seems to infer that you can get anybody in your office to also submit on your survey link.

Here is a copy of the email.. Please note.. I have removed the copy to our survey.  They claim it is anonymous but the survey may still have a unique id.  If you don’t get your copy and you want to let REA know what you think of them get on to your account manager for your survey link.

*************************************

Dear Owner / Principal,

In a continued effort to improve our offerings to customers, we would like to invite you to participate in our 2011 realestate.com.au Customer Satisfaction Survey. Your feedback is important to us and past feedback has resulted in many improvements to the products and services we provide to agents (see below for further details).

WHO SHOULD COMPLETE THIS SURVEY?
The survey questionnaire can be completed by personnel who have contact with realestate.com.au.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?
The survey will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete, depending on your answers.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?
In appreciation of your time and input, we are offering a reward to those who participate — entry into a prize draw to win one of 2 prizes — either an Apple iPhone 4 or Apple iPad 2.

To start the survey please either click on the relevant link or paste it into your browser window:

<< Link to Survey Removed by Me -- see note at the bottom>>

WHEN IS THE SURVEY COMPLETION DEADLINE?
Please ensure the survey is completed no later than Thursday 23 June.

HOW HAVE THE RESULTS OF PAST SURVEYS BEEN USED?
Results obtained from previous Customer Satisfaction research provided us with valuable feedback that enabled us to identify new opportunities to improve our service. Over the past 12 months we have launched a range of new initiatives designed to further enhance your day-to-day involvement and partnership with realestate.com.au. These initiatives include:

Set-up of the Key Accounts and Inside Sales teams to provide more frequent and relevant support to customers
Restructuring of our sales team regions to enable them to increase their local area knowledge
Continued site enhancements with the addition of their properties appearing on the iPhone application and property.com.au
Thank you in advance for your participation.

Regards,
Greg Ellis
CEO / MD
REA Group

ABOUT THIS RESEARCH
All your responses are anonymous and will only be used in an aggregated form for research purposes unless you agree to disclose your individual feedback. Our research agency, Evolve Research, abides by the Market and Social Research Privacy code (for more information please click here)

*****************************

If somebody can confirm the link in their email to me at glennbatten@gmail.com and if it is the same as mine (ie.. not unique links)  I will edit the article to include it.

Originally posted at the : Business2 Blog

To counter this requirement many of these websites started to be run or at least associated with licensed real estate agents.  The truth was that many of these solutions were really just a glorified property listing portal that had just one effective tool and that for a private seller they could list your property on realestate.com.au.  They did not act as an agent but they seemed to get around the rules because they simply held a real estate license.

Realestate.com.au responded by creating the Private Listing Policy which effectively listed the minimum requires an agent had to provide to clients before they could list property on realestate.com.au.  These websites now became what was coined Agent Assisted websites that provided a bare minimum of a limited range of real estate services such as negotiation, contract preparation or assitance  and market appraisals. All of this was done from afar and often over the telephone or internet.  The policy was confusing for everyone and left a lot to interpretation because at one point  Hubonline, a subsidiary of RealEstate.com.au was building websites for these digital agents in contravention to their Private Listing Policy.

After plenty of pressure of the subject many of these digital agents in February 2011 had been removed or threatened to be removed from the portal, an issue they did not take too kindly to at all. Complaints were quickly lodged with the regulatory bodies and the fight ensued. A fight that traditional agents thought Realestate.com.au would follow through with.

And there we were waiting for the outcome until an email about 30-40 minutes ago.

Because of the instant delivery of email  its a golden rule to send good news on Monday morning so its at the top of the inbox when the recipient arrives at work and conversely to send bad news late on a Friday so it loses gets lost amongst the clutter. So its not surprising to see that when its really bad news its released on a Friday just prior to a long weekend  so its buried deep!!

Greg Ellis has just notified agents by email that effectively immediately the minimum levels of service have been in the Private Listing Policy are no longer to apply.

The real effect of this for traditional bricks and mortar agencies are that with service criteria totally gone private listings can now effectively engage one of these digital real estate agents to list their property on realestate.com.au. When you combine this with the fact that we have unlimited accounts and can list as many properties as you want any licensed real estate agent can now create a business to list property on realestate.com.au and charge a small fee.  As long as they get enough clients to cover the base subscription its going to be profitable.

I believe that for many the provision of these limited  real estate services will be thrown out the window because they were only added to get around the pesky Private Listing Policy in the first place.

It’s not totally clear yet just what was behind the complete reversal of Realestate.com.au. It could be that BuyMyPlace and others were successful with applying pressure with their complaints to the ACCC.  Similarly it could be financially motivated as the industry suffers across the country discretionary spending on portals like realestate.com.au has plummeted and its a move to get as many accounts as they can get their hands on.

One things for sure, with RealEstate.com.au backing down from this fight Private Sellers are going to have a stack of choices now to get their property listed on the realestate.com.au portal.  How low will they go ?   One guy operating from his bedroom might be able to offer listings on realestate.com.au for just $30 or $40 a pop because he is getting private seller listings form all over Australia.  How will vendors react to paying higher VPA levels for a realestate.com.au listing through a traditional real estate agent?

Here is a copy of the email :-

*************************************************

Dear Customer,

Our business has been providing online marketing services for the real estate industry since 1995, growing to become Australia’s No.1 property site by working with licensed real estate agents such as yourself to help you market properties on behalf of vendors.

From time to time we need to update our policies to keep pace with changing market dynamics and I am writing to update you on changes to the subscription requirements for realestate.com.au.

It’s important to note that our Terms and Conditions are not changing.  realestate.com.au will continue to require subscribers to hold a valid real estate agent licence and comply with the relevant regulations (including entering into agency agreements with vendors in the form required by state regulators). Vendors can only advertise on our site by engaging the services of a licensed real estate agent who is a realestate.com.au customer.

However, we have recognised that the minimum services requirement outlined in our Private Listing Policy — prescribing a required minimum range of ‘usual’ real estate agency services that agents must provide to their vendors — is out of step with the market and industry regulatory practices.

For these reasons, effective immediately, this minimum services requirement will no longer apply.
We wanted to share this decision with you and assure you that realestate.com.au remains committed to delivering innovative advertising solutions to our licensed real estate agent customers.

If you have any questions about these changes, please don’t hesitate to discuss them with your account manager.

Yours sincerely,

Greg Ellis
Chief Executive Officer
REA Group Ltd (realestate.com.au)

**********************

What are your thoughts on Realestate.com.au backflip in just 4 months?

What’s really disappointing for me is that realestate.com.au has been picking fights everywhere recently and the only one they seem to back down from is the one that many agents wanted them to make stand for.

So is it just a sign of the times as realestate.com.au would have you believe in their email.?

Why have they totally reversed their position in the past 4 months?  and has Realestate.com.au sold out the industry by allowing Private Sellers to get onto the portal through the backdoor?

Originally posted at the : Business2 Blog