CEO Corner

Posted by Carolyn Gray at 07:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Between October last year and May this year, propertyfinder.com (realestate.com.au's UK site) has out grown all major competitors. 

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.

Posted by Simon at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Back in December last year we were reading headlines of how primelocation was being sold for £48m and how they were the next big thing.

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.

Posted by Simon at 04:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday the new propertyfinder.com site was launched along with a new brand image for the business.

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.

Posted by Simon at 03:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Propertyfinder.com is pleased to announce that Warren Bright has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer. 

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.”

Posted by Simon at 06:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)