Agent Update Blog

Thanks to propertyfinder.com and its Australian cousin realestate.com.au, two lucky UK estate agents and their guests are preparing themselves for an unforgettable New Year's experience in sunny Oz plus a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness first hand the battle between Australia and England for the Ashes.

Simon Bradbury from Thomas Morris and Gareth Fatchett from Chamberlains each won two tickets to Sydney over the New Year in the propertyfinder.com draw. Both winners will enjoy a seven night break for them and one guest each, including return flights to Sydney, four star accommodation and VIP tickets to watch every day of the final test match of the Ashes.

The winners will fly out after Christmas in time to spend New Year's Eve in one of the most exciting cities in the world, as well as being given tickets to the sold out final Test in the Series.

Warren Bright, Chief Executive Officer of propertyfinder.com said "Cricket mad estate agents up and down the country entered our draw. The property market has been exceptionally busy of late and Christmas is one period when estate agents can actually get a breather. I hope that Simon and Gareth have a fantastic holiday. We are committed to providing our estate agent customers with the best possible service. We know how hard agents work and whilst propertyfinder.com helps by giving them access to the widest possible audience of home seekers, we are happy to be able to offer our winners a well deserved break over the Christmas period".

Posted by at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

realestate.com.au Ltd (ASX:REA, and its subsidiary companies, The REA Group) has partnered with SKY Italia, the Italian pay TV operator to acquire 90% of Casa.it for 9.6m Euro. Following the transaction, realestate.com.au will own 59.4%, SKY Italia will own 30.6% and Casa.it's founder and current CEO will retain 10%.

Founded in 1996, Casa.it has become Italy's largest property site with over 2,800 estate agent offices subscribing to the service and advertising 130,000 homes for sale or for rent. Each month there are around 700,000 unique visitors to the site. Casa.it has operations in Treviso Northern Italy and call centre operations in Bucharest Romania.

"Casa.it is a great acquisition for our business," said Simon Baker, Managing Director of The REA Group. "While currently a small business, Casa.it is profitable and the market leader in a country with 60 million people, around 20,000 estate agent offices, high rates of home ownership, and strong broadband penetration. We believe that Italy is an emerging country for online real estate advertising and Casa.it is best placed to capture much of the growth in the market."

Baker plans to rapidly grow Casa.it's business. "We are pleased to be able to partner with SKY Italia. Casa.it will benefit from accessing the broad coverage of SKY Italia and the online real estate experience of The REA Group" he explained.

Tom Mockridge, CEO of SKY Italia, commented, "We are pleased to partner with realestate.com.au to acquire Casa.it. The acquisition adds another dimension to SkyItalia's business and we plan to work closely with Casa.it to gain greater awareness of our pay television services and potentially develop another channel to market."

Casa.it will become part of The REA Group, and its founder will remain as CEO of Casa.it and report to Simon Baker.

"The acquisition of Casa.it further expands The REA Group. We now have operations in Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Italy. Together there are 14,800 agents advertising around 900,000 listings to 5.5 million unique visitors," commented Baker.

The transaction is subject to approval by the Italian Antitrust Authority and it is expected that the transaction will be completed in early to mid December 2006.

Posted by at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Janet Edwards, a negotiator at the Stretford branch in Manchester for Reeds Rains was the lucky winner of propertyfinder.com's national Red Letter Day competition.

Janet will be jetting off with a friend to Sydney courtesy of propertyfinder.com and Virgin Atlantic after winning the nationwide competition. She was chosen at random from more than 1,000 agents who entered the prize draw.

The tickets, which were presented to Janet by propertyfinder.com CEO Warren Bright last week in Manchester, will provide Janet with the perfect opportunity to swap the drizzly British winter for the golden beaches of Australia.

Warren Bright, chief executive of propertyfinder.com said: "It was great to see the winner come from the Manchester area as it is a very important area for us and an area in which we are experiencing rapid growth. Our investment in building propertyfinder.com's presence with TV adverts, radio, online competitions and propertyfinder.com branded buses is clearly now paying off for the hundreds of agents we have using propertyfinder.com in the region."

With two tickets to Australia already won, propertyfinder.com is set to continue showing it's appreciation to estate agents by giving them another chance to win a trip to Australia to watch England do battle with the Aussies at the final Ashes Test in Sydney. The trip includes seven nights at a 4 star harbour front hotel, New Years Eve in Sydney and tickets to the exclusive Members Area for all five days of the test match. To enter, agents simply have to make an appointment with a propertyfinder.com sales representative by calling on 08700 758888 before 23rd November 2006.

Posted by at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since being acquired 12 months ago, propertyfinder.com has continued its run as the UK's fastest growing major property portal and according to independent statistics recently became the second most popular property portal in the UK.

Since its acquisition by News International and Australia's REA Group, propertyfinder.com has managed to grow at an extraordinary rate.

Recent figures show that in the last year, there has been a phenomenal 74% rise in estate agent offices subscribing to the service. The company's commitment to providing an outstanding advertising platform and a range of innovative advertising products not available on other sites has seen the total number of offices using the site rise to over 3,500.

This formula has also seen revenues increase significantly - all without having to resort to the double digit price increases favoured by other major portals.

A strong consumer marketing strategy that includes regular use of television, print, radio, online and a range of innovative outdoor activities, including the distinctive propertyfinder.com buses with their afro wearing teams, has also attracted buyers, sellers and renters in their droves. The number of people visiting the site each month has increased by almost 100%.

Commenting on the success, Warren Bright, who joined propertyfinder.com as Chief Executive Officer soon after the takeover, said "We are happy with progress we have made since the acquisition. We have focused on implementing a strategy focused on providing our clients with real value for money. We aren't interested in massive price hikes. We would rather offer our clients a range of options that other portals can't match, all of which are great value for money and this is obviously proving extremely attractive to agents."

As for the future, Bright commented "We will continue to innovate. We will role out additional advertising options for agents in the New Year and with the acquisition of the London Property News magazine group we will offer many clients an extremely attractive bundle of online and print advertising solutions - and not just in London. The focus for us is to continue to work on providing great solutions for agents that result in them growing their businesses."

Posted by at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)