Visitors to the site are now able to see the property they are looking at plotted on a local map and they have the ability to switch between a map view with the streets shown and a satellite view with the actual houses shown.
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Visitors to the site are now able to see the property they are looking at plotted on a local map and they have the ability to switch between a map view with the streets shown and a satellite view with the actual houses shown.
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Dont take my word for it ... this is what our customers are saying
David Cadwallader Link Up Properties
“We’re already advertising on propertyfinder.com and at present it is our lead referral source, vying closely with Rightmove and slaughtering Primelocation. We find the web site very easy to use, informative and quite often go weeks without the need to check if everything on the site is right because when we do check…It is. Obviously this cannot be said for some other sites!”
Angela Longmate A.M. Property Management (UK) Ltd
“I have been extremely happy with the way propertyfinder.com have helped me. I am receiving more and more enquiries daily as a result of taking up 5 featured properties. Thank you and keep up the positive work.”
Robin Miles Aitchisons Estate Agents
“I wanted to put in writing what a superb response we have had from the web site so far. We are getting a far better response than other comparable sites such as Primelocation and even Rightmove at present and wanted to thank you. In terms of numbers, percentage wise, we are getting on average an increase of around 20%, so we are delighted with this. Once again many thanks for your persistance in bringing us on board and will of course keep you updated in terms of further progress.“
Alice Evans EA Shaw
“We had a really good response from your site over the weekend – fantastic!”
]]>According to independent site measurement company comScore, propertyfinder.com grew by 88% over the period, more than double the growth of fish4homes and rightmove.
Most interesting was the decline in traffic suffered by primelocation over the same period. According to comScore, primelocation's traffic decreased by 2% between October 2005 and May 2006. It does make you wonder whether if the 48 million pound purchase price paid by DMGT for primelocation was a tad over enthusiastic.
The even better news is that we know that propertyfinder's traffic in June and July this year was significantly more than May - the source of these numbers. We will update you on the growth as the new comScore numbers are released.
]]>The London Property News will be merged with the propertyfinder.com business to provide property advertisers with the best of online and offline advertising for their brands and their sellers propertyies.
In the June 8 edition, there is a great article about the most recent Californian Association of Realtors (CAR) survey - note there are 185,000 (yes that many) real estate agents in California!
Apart from the normal stats that they produce, one really stood out - 94% of buyers who primarily use the internet (internet buyers) were very satisfied with the home buying process while only 25% of traditional buyers were satisfied. The report then goes on to identify that 68% of internet buyers were very satisfied with their agents versus only 24% of traditional buyers.
So what was driving this? Perhaps it is the instant communication. 23% of internet buyers expected instant communication from the agent while 21% wanted a reply in 30 minutes. Only 16% were happy with a 24 hour turn around.
Internet buyers reported greater satisfaction with gathering information on neighbourhoods and schools, how well their agent kept them informed and their overall understanding of the buying process.
Internet buyers were quicker to buy - spending only 2.2 weeks searching an average of 6.7 homes vs 7.1 weeks for traditional buyers searching an average 15.4 homes.
What was very interesting is that internet buyers (and it is an buyers agent market) interviewed an average of 1.5 agents before selecting one while traditional buyers interviewed over 3 agents. An important note was that 69% of internet buyers said that agent response time was extremely important in the selection process.
Internet buyers love to communicate with their agents via email with 83% preferring email.
In short - if you are targeting the internet buyer then you really need to be on your game.
]]>If a week is a long time in football then 8 months is a very long time in the life of a property portal site.
According to independent media analyst, ComScore, since October 2005 propertyfinder has under gone a massive 95% growth in visitors to the site while primelocation has achieved a miserly 22% growth.
Given some agents may pay two or three times the cost to advertise on primelocation than on propertyfinder, it is clear which site drives the agent's advertising spend further.
These figures are produced by the independent media monitor ComScore and only show UK visitors to the sites. In the same period there were an additional 100,000 international visitors to the propertyfinder site.
We have adopted RED as our colour to make us stand out from the crowd.
The site is based on Australia's market leading site, realestate.com.au, that has been developed over the last 5 years and also as a result of extensive market testing with consumers in the UK.
Key new features of the site are an easy to use map search, a quick and simple location search on the home page, the ability to map search results at a click of a button, easy to interact with the agents through simple email forms and access to a broad range of properties from outside of the UK.
The main changes are the introduction of a very simple to use and clear interface design.
We are always looking to improve our site so send us and email or comment on this blog about the changes you would love to see.
These sites include realestate.com.au, the leadering residential site in Australia, allrealestate.co.nz the second placed residential site in New Zealand, realcommercial.com.au the leading commercial site in Australia and propertylook.com.au and .co.nz, the second place commercial site in Australia and New Zealand.
In total around 4.6 million people visited at least one of the sites.
Site | Unique Browsers (May 06) | Month on Month Growth |
| realestate.com.au | 2,912,835 | 9% |
| propertyfinder.com | 1,279,342 | 3% |
| allrealestate.co.nz | 177,439 | 21% |
| realcommercial.com.au | 144,944 | 13% |
| propertylook.com.au | 65,274 | 17% |
| propertylook.co.nz | 6,773 | n/a |
| Total | 4,586,607 |
Source: Omniture (propertyfinder.com), Nielsen//NetRatings (all other sites)
]]>It was during the cold, short days at the start of 2006 that Sandi Thom had her Eureka! moment. Instead of driving to gigs up and down the country with her band in her clapped-out car, as she had done for years, the singer from Scotland resolved to try a different approach. She bought a webcam, and announced a run of 21 shows to be performed on consecutive nights during February and March in the basement of her flat in Tooting, South London. The audience capacity in the flat itself was limited to just six people. But the half-hour shows were to be broadcast, free of charge, via her website at www.sandithom.com. The first night, 70 people tuned in to watch, the next night it went up to 670. And by the middle of the second week she was performing to a peak audience of 162,000. By then, the suits from every major record label had visited the flat to see the show for themselves. What they heard was a singer with a sensational voice - strong and expressive enough to fill the largest theatres, but also warm and soulful enough to win over hearts and minds in the most intimate of settings. All the record companies put in offers, and a fortnight after finishing her virtual tour Thom signed a recording contract with RCA executive Craig Logan, live in front of her webcam audience.
Even before her debut album, *Smile... It Confuses People* is released on June 5, preceded by a single, *I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker* on May 22, Sandi Thom is a phenomenon. The company is calling it "the first webcast signing in major record label history" and she has become the overnight internet star who won a global audience and a megabucks handshake thanks to her investment in a £60 webcam. Needless to say, the story goes a little deeper than that.
If only i had thought of that first ... and could actually play!
]]>So, propertyfinder.com in partnership with allrealestate.co.nz and realestate.com.au, decided to try the same viral marketing campaign. This time it was based around the concept of weird flat mates. We create a website www.weirdflatmate.com with an interactive blog and a commercial (that hasnt aired on TV) and let it loose.
The results have been fantastic. The TV ad has been viewed over 370,000 times around the world. It was featured on the front page of myspace.com in the US. The approach has been way beyond our expectations. The website has been visited by thousands and we have had thousands of comments and stories about living with weird flat mates.
Viral marketing is certainly the way of the future.
If you havent seen the ad, check it out below.
]]>So it was with interest that i was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about "The Best of the Worst" of the internet. Do you remember cyberrebate.com, flooz.com, ismell, cuecats, iLoo, Audrey or point cast?
For more information check out the full Wall Street Journal article and enjoy ... http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114424637699117715-OO16F7Ov3DMZcs1xpbu5ksPDTl0_20070503.html
]]>Warren boasts a distinguished career in Senior Management at real estate businesses and online media companies and brings a unique blend of property, online, marketing and management consulting experience to propertyfinder.com and the UK market.
Warren has founded two businesses serving the Australian real estate industry – True Property Management and True Real Estate Solutions – and has served as a Director on the boards of a number of real estate related companies.
He has also been the Chief Operating Officer of McGrath Estate Agents, Australia's largest and most innovative independent estate agent and has spent 3 years successfully running the internet businesses for News Corporation in Australia.
Warren Bright comments, “I am really looking forward to leading propertyfinder.com. I firmly believe that we are in the best position to challenge Rightmove for leadership in the UK online property advertising industry. We have a tremendous brand and can offer our clients truly national coverage and our association with News International gives us access to some of the UK’s finest newspapers to help promote our brand. Our relationship with realestate.com.au ensures that we have access to the world’s most advanced real estate portal technology. It also lets us tap into a global network with over 4.5 million visitors each month.”
Bright continues, “We are in the fortunate position of being able to focus all our energies onto the one thing that matters – providing our customers with outstanding online advertising solutions. We will not be distracted by HIP’s or building new technologies. The coming year will see propertyfinder.com launch a range of innovative new products that will allow agents to promote their businesses and their properties in a far more effective way than they are able to on the other portals.”
realestate.com.au Ltd. is the 50% owner of propertyfinder.com and the number one property portal in Australia. Managing Director, Simon Baker comments, “We are extremely pleased to have someone of the caliber of Warren heading up propertyfinder.com. He has a great track record of building businesses and we believe that his unique blend of property, online, marketing and management consulting experience will ensure that propertyfinder.com challenges Rightmove for market leadership.”
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HubOnline Global Pty Ltd is one of the leading providers of web based sales, lead management and marketing solutions to Australian and New Zealand estate agents. It has over 480 offices providing its services to customers such as Laing & Simmons, Roberts Real Estate, Coldwell Banker, Marshall White, Belle Property and Thomson Real Estate.
]]> HubOnline Global’s main offering is PropertiesOnline, a fully integrated sales, lead management and marketing application that helps franchises, real estate principals and sales agents to:Agents can enter seller and buyer leads into PropertiesOnline and then easily manage these leads through to sale or purchase finalisation. The application will be integrated with www.realestate.com.au and potentially other portal sites so that agents can easily upload and track their listings. All agents require is access to an internet connection as the application is web-based and centrally managed.
The HubOnline business will be combined with the realestate.com.au Web Design Services – Australia’s largest developer of websites for real estate agents and currently powers over 2,500 office sites including the Ray White and Raine & Horne Queensland head office sites.
Simon Baker, Managing Director of realestate.com.au Ltd, said “we believe that there is an opportunity to move beyond online advertising by providing our 10,500 customers across Australia, NZ and the UK with a market leading sales, lead management and marketing application. This will make it easier for agents to do business and help them drive greater revenues at lower costs.”
“HubOnline is a market leader and our preferred partner. They have spent 6 years developing and selling what is considered by many as the industry’s most advanced sales, lead management and marketing solution,” said Simon Baker.
According to James Tucker, Managing Director of HubOnline Global Pty Ltd, “realestate.com.au is our partner of choice. They have the marketing power and relationships to help take our products and services to the next level. We are looking forward to becoming part of their business and making our products and services available to their customers throughout the world.”
Ross Hedditch of Thompson Real Estate commented on the acquisition, “I am delighted to see that HubOnline and realestate.com.au have come together to offer the industry a secure and seamless customer, listings and lead management system that integrates with Australia's largest real estate portal to provide agents with a one stop solution to their online needs.”
realestate.com.au is pleased to announce that James Tucker, the current Managing Director of HubOnline Global Pty Ltd, will be joining realestate.com.au to head up the combined HubOnline and realestate.com.au Web Design Services business unit. Bryce Graham, the current Sales Director at HubOnline, has been appointed as the Major Accounts Sales Manager for this new business unit.
The Guardian reported on the 25th that the BBC would be rebuilding its site around user generated content including blogs and home videos.
Check out the full story at http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1760999,00.html
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