propertyextra.com.au - Blog

In the new movie Jumper, the hero is an otherwise normal guy who just happens to be able to jump forward in time–at will. For the real estate industry, the future never arrives so quickly. Instead it comes in dribs and drabs, day by day.

Still, the future always arrives.

From Peter Williams’ entire presentation the other day, there is one line that I can still quote from memory.

He said that, because of the web, in the future, “Traditional agents will not be replaced by technology…they will be replaced by agents with technology.” (more…)

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There have been a few whispers circulating that home.com.au” title=”MyHome”>MyHome and homehound.com” title=”Homehound” target=”_blank”>Homehound are about to merge or are at least in talks of a merger. I don’t know how much weight I can lend to these whispers but it would be interesting on a number of issues.

I hope they do to be honest and I hope home.com.au” title=”MyHome” target=”_blank”>MyHome use the homehound.com” title=”Homehound” target=”_blank”>Homehound developers, who I must say have done a pretty nifty job of their website. homehound.com” title=”Homehound” target=”_blank”>Homehound is now more popular than home.com.au” title=”Homehound” target=”_blank”>MyHome (ouch) in terms of users, but it is their website I like the most. It really is a nice little site.

The only downside of all of this is the ownership issue. I just cannot see any portal working that is owned in full or in part by real estate agencies (franchises or not) unless everyone has a fair and equal share. If these two companies do merge, I hope (fingers crossed) they use the homehound.com” title=”Homehound” target=”_blank”>Homehound website and systems, as it still hurts for me to look at home.com.au” title=”MyHome” target=”_blank”>MyHome (although it has improved a little).

Other news:
My associate writer on business2.com.au, Dave Platter, has just welcomed a new child into his family, so congratulations to Dave and his lovely wife. Lets just hope the child and mother never hear the words “he looks just like his father”.

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The REA today released a massive increase in revenue (50%) and 68% EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation) for the 6 months ending 31st December 2007.

Today REA operates in 12 countries and controls 18 real estate websites, 8 print publications and a variety of other software tools. Here is a snapshot of their Australian results. (more…)

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Real estate agents in Australia are facing a new wave of online innovation in which consumers use the internet to rate agents and read the ratings that other consumers have posted. In a sad attempt at a surfing analogy, let’s say that agents can either catch this wave or let it dump them.

A few days ago I attended an event at which Peter Williams, CEO of Deloitte Digital, (photo courtesy of Sydney Morning Herald) spoke to about 250 real estate agents (and me and some other folks from realestate.com.au) about the online trends affecting their industry.*

One of the critical issues Peter talked about is agents’ loss of control over their reputations to consumers online. US real estate blogger Joel Burslem called this “online reputation management” in our interview last week. He thinks it’s one of the most important issues agents face.
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This site seems to have been around for well over a year but I have only just discovered it and thought that there must be plenty of others who have not stumbled across it yet. The website is www.jenman.org

The site owners are also conducting an adwords campaign to spread the word against Mr Jenman.
It is a collection of articles from numerous sources about Jenman and includes the parodies of the Jenman slogan “Promoting Himself in Real Estate” and one of Jenman’s pet quotes….. “Stay Safe - Don’t Sign Anything from a Jenman Agent”.
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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).

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Let’s hear about real estate marketing and the Internet from an overseas perspective.

In particular, I’m thinking of a country where the housing market seems to be in meltdown, there is a fierce political campaign under way and there are some true online real estate innovators in action.

Yes, I’m thinking of the USA.

I’ve interviewed Joel Burslem about all these topics (except the political campaign). Before you read his words of wisdom, there are three things you should know about Joel: (more…)

New web based services are popping up all of the time, some with questionable business models and some legitimate. One I was informed about today, tells us that they save consumers thousands of dollars and the name of the website is refrealestate.com.au. Now if there is a questionable model for business this is it.

The site has a large database of agents names throughout Australia. Basically a potential seller searches their area and contacts an agent via a web form. But no, this email goes to refrealestate and then they contact the agent in question. This raises a few important questions.

• Do they use this information to contact other agents?
• Do they charge agents a fee for the referral? (they have to make money)
• Do agents know that they have a page that they are ranked on?

The savings
It claims that $2000.00 is the average saving. I am presuming they are going off institute fee structures. Now any dummy can save that money in a first meeting with an agent. The best way to save money is to invoke competition. If a vendor wants the most out of the agent, the best way to approach this, is to work out what they are getting first (products, services) and detail this information. This is the best way to rank an agent, then the time will come to negotiate a fee. Then a decision is made.

I must say I am getting sick of all of these new websites just trying to pilfer more money out of agents, so I am going to do something about it. All these services do, is denigrate the actual offerings of the professional agents. If the first step a person takes is wanting to get the cheapest deal, then they have already fallen down the stairs.

I am sure agents do not mind being advertised on various sites, as long as it is complimentary. I doubt many would judge this site as any help at all.

Peter posted recently about RealFutureCRM which is a US company specialising in CRM for the Real Estate Industry. That post created some hot discussion about solutions already available in Australia and claims that they were being overlooked. Representatives from a number of Australian companies chimed in with posts in support of their own product.

Mo raised that fact that Hubonline, owned by REA, was built on SugarCRM.

Eddie Cetin, the National Business Development Manager for HubOnline contacted me and confirmed that their new version (v2) that had just been completed was built on SugarCRM. I had a demo of the old version of Hubonline last year so Eddie invited me to preview the new version when he flew to the Gold Coast next.

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Here is a little to do list for 2008 for real estate agents. Just some things to think about.

Resist Fee Increases
Yes they will all be at it again. Telling you how much they have improved, how much benefit they are to your company, oh and how much you mean to them. The truth is they just know you will have no choice but to pay and they have to increase profits. So if they create another category such as Super Platinum tell em you have better things to spend your money on. If a customer is looking for a house in Brisbane they are not going to look at the first page, they will look through all of the listings. Another thing is that users are becoming so much more sophisticated with their browsing. Of course the portals know you are in deep rivalry with your competitor across the road and if they can sign them they know you are a monty to pay.

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