Zoopla, one of the top 10 UK property portals, has been in the news quite a bit this year, from participating in the charity event The Vertical Rush and raising over £10K for charitable orgainsation Shelter, launching very successful national TV campaigns, recently acquiring UpMyStreet.com, and now the company has ventured into the world of football.

Zoopla has announced that they have signed a long-term partnership as the principal sponsor of Premier League football club, West Bromwich Albion. The sponsorship deal is intended to start on June 1st of this year and should run until at least the 2014/2015 season.

The sponsorship of the West Bromwich Albion football club, marks a new phase of brand activity for Zoopla. The company stated that, Zoopla branding will take pride of place on the shirts of the Albion players, throughout the Hawthorns stadium, on official club merchandise, across the club’s website, on match tickets/programmes and on the interview backdrops featured on Sky and BBC football coverage.

In addition to the extensive branding, the partnership deal also includes comprehensive hospitality opportunities, tickets for games, player appearances and use of the stadium facilities for Zoopla to both entertain its advertising members and support its charitable efforts. Having recently played their last match of the season, the Baggies finished in 10th place this year, their highest ever finish in the Barclays Premier League.

The company feels that this latest deal confirms Zoopla’s commitment to becoming the UK’s best known online property brand. Despite being around only four years, Zoopla is already the second most visited site in the UK.

With only twenty teams in the Premier League, Zoopla joins an elite group of brands including Aviva, Emirates, Samsung and Standard Chartered in securing the principal sponsorship of one of these top class football clubs.

Alex Chesterman, Founder & CEO of Zoopla said: “We are very excited to be partnering with West Bromwich Albion, a family club with a rich heritage and some of the best fans in football. This deal will help raise our brand awareness and reach a huge audience and is a further step in our mission to make Zoopla a household name, synonymous with online property search and research.”

Mark Jenkins, Chief Executive of West Bromwich Albion Football Club said, “We are delighted to welcome Zoopla as our new principal club sponsor, in what represents the most comprehensive sponsorship deal in the club’s history. We have been impressed by the approach that Zoopla have taken to supporting the club, are confident that they will be a great partner for us and are looking forward to building a strong working relationship with them.”

Adrian Wright, Sales & Marketing Director of West Bromwich Albion Football Club said, “We have found a fantastic partner in Zoopla and are excited about working with the Zoopla team to help achieve their brand and business objectives over the coming years.”

“Our agent members will benefit greatly from the national brand exposure of this partnership as we further cement our position as their most valued marketing partner. We are looking forward to working closely with West Bromwich Albion to ensure that this is a highly beneficial relationship for both parties,” concluded Alex Chesterman.

CoreLogic has filed a suit against Redfin, for violating their automated valuation model patent, filed 20 years ago.

Redfin launched its Home Price Tool back in March of this year. The tool was created to help homeowners home owners get a better idea of the values of their home, before entering into discussions with an agent. Texas-based CoreLogic has claimed that the technology is actually theirs, and they have filed a patent suit against Redfin for infringement on their patent.

CoreLogic is a provider of advanced property and ownership information, and it is  one of the largest suppliers of Automated Valuation Models for real estate, assisting homeowners in obtaining appraisals on their property.

The company filed a patent back in 1992 (Patent No. 5,361,201) for their tool, ‘Real Estate Appraisal Using Predictive Modeling.’ The patent was granted in 1994. Patents filed before 1995 have a shelf life of 20 years, which would mean that CoreLogic has approximately two years to enforce its suit against Redfin.

Zillow, Inc., Lender Processing Services, Inc., Real Data, Inc., Realec Technologies, Inc. and several others have all previously been in the crosshairs of CoreLogic for patent infringement lawsuits.

It should be interesting to see the outcome to this situation. Full information on the lawsuit filed by CoreLogic against Redfin can be read here.

It is being reported by the team at 1000watt Consulting that ZipRealty in the US has opened up its site to allow the general public to comment on agents and their performance. These comments seem to be unfiltered thus (hopefully) providing a true view of what the public think about the agent rather than glorified marketing.

A review of the site shows that there are in fact less than flattering reviews of some agents as can be seen below.

When I first spoke to Theresa over the phone I was very excited. We setup a time to meet and look at some homes. The day of the meeting she never returned my phone call. I was very disappointed.  Click here to see the original post.

ZipRealty is a brokerage in the US that relies heavily on the Internet to generate leads for its agents.  Therefore opening up the agents to review – both positive and negative – does provide some interesting challenges for the business and does raise the bar on their operating performance.

Homethinking in the US is another site that provides reviews of agents. It differs from ZipRealty in that it provides an independent review service for all US agents (well most of them). The realtors on Homethinking are by their past sales as well as customer reviews.

The move by ZipRealty is definitely worth keeping an eye on and something that property portals around the world should keep an eye on.

We will be discussing issues like this and so much more at the Property Portal Watch Workshop being held in San Francisco on the 31st July. Click here for more information and to register today.

Mention real estate to pretty much anyone in the US and they will no doubt roll their eyes, and then offer an example of someone who has been affected by the real estate bubble which has sent rippling shock waves across the country after the burst in 2008.

US home values were at their pear in 2007, but currently many homeowners are underwater in their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their home is worth.

Seattle-based online real estate portal Zillow, offers an interactive map with which users can discover what percentage of homes in their county or ZIP code are in negative equity, based on Zillow’s first quarter 2012 data.

The company worked with Stamen Design to create the interactive tool. The map calculates the negative equity of property by matching the estimated value of a home to all outstanding mortgage debt and lines of credit associated with the home, including home equity lines of credit and home equity loans, supplied by TransUnion, a global leader in credit and information management. All personally identifying information (“PII”) is removed from the data by TransUnion before delivery to Zillow.

The counties and ZIP codes in the highest percentiles (1st, 5th, 10th and 20th percentiles) of negative equity are marked with a badge. Negative equity is calculated for owner-occupied homes with mortgages for more than 800 metros, 2,100 counties, and 22,200 ZIP codes. According to Zillow, the negative equity map will be updated quarterly.

Zillow claims it offers the most broad and accurate public source of negative equity information with its map.

Australia’s third largest and industry-owned property portal realestateVIEW.com.au, announced the launch of its latest website release, the new Find an Agent directory.

The directory, is aimed at both agents and vendors, by providing a means for vendors to establish contact with agents in their local area, and allowing agencies to generate qualified leads from potential clients.

Agents can showcase their knowledge and expertise via a branded Find an Agent profile, as well as feature their agency’s specialties, staff profiles, client testimonials, links to blogs and social media networks, corporate images, videos and more.

“Our Find an Agent directory will provide vendors with a destination to search and compare potential agents to represent the sale of their property,” said Petra Sprekos, General Manager of realestateVIEW.com.au.

A Find an Agent profile is very easy and fast to establish, but most importantly it is free of charge, for all realestateVIEW.com.au subscribers and agents, making this extremely useful tool even more enticing.

Reaching an audience of 1.1 million unique visitors a month, realestateVIEW.com.au was launched in 2001, it is owned and operated by the industry and it offers over 200,000 listings across the residential, commercial, business and holiday markets.

¹ Based on Google Analytics data in March 2012

India’s MagicBricks has just released its highly anticipated Property Index Anniversary Issue, and it has already hit the stands around the country. The Index is the first of its kind that tracks both demand and supply of real estate across the 11 major cities of India.

“Having completed a year of publishing, this anniversary issue is special with enhanced analysis and extra insights. For the first time ever, detailed analysis of User Demand has been drilled down to Suburb levels. We have also expanded PropIndex coverage to over 620 localities for Capital Values with a special feature on the Top 10 Localities in each city.” said Sudhir Pai, Business Head, MagicBricks.com.

Commenting on the report, Mr. L.K. Jain, National President, CREDAI, the Country’s Apex Real Estate Body said, “We need benchmark value indicators in the real estate industry across the country which can guide consumer and assist developers in analyzing city rates and trends. MagicBricks PropIndex provides a structured and transparent matrix and I am looking forward to consider these case studies as Benchmark in such reports.”

CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developer’s Associations of India) is the apex body of the organised real estate developers/builders across India. Present with 18 state/city level association viz. Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi-NCR, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal with over 6,000 members.

Speaking of this association, Sudhir Pai added, “Having joined hands with CREDAI, The MagicBricks PropIndex features exclusive commentaries from each of the Heads of CREDAI’s city units on their interpretation of their individual market performance. These commentaries add tremendous insights to this great source of information for layman investors as well.”

The PropIndex addresses such issues as, the tight monetary conditions and slow off-take in the country, and how in spite of it, values of residential property maintained a growth of 8-10% across cities, and as a result, 9 of the 11 indexed cities showed a rise in the property index values.

Also mentioned is the weak buyer sentiments and drop in rate of new launches in the city, which dragged the Mumbai Index downwards whereas in Chennai, a decline in average capital values as well, as listings pushed their city index down.

Here are the other Key Findings from the MagicBricks.com PropIndex Anniversary Issue:

- The National Property Index (NPI) rose over 2% across the country

- Majority of consumer demand exists for properties costing up to Rs 60 lakh (US$110,000).

- Transport connectivity and affordability remain top priorities among consumers.

- Ready-to-move-in and property near completion stage witness maximum demand.

- Cities witness migration of working population to affordable locations in the suburbs.

- Localities continue to witness good demand for properties in and around commercial centres for both outright purchase as well as rentals.

- Traditional unit size properties in the 2 and 3BHK category continued to be the common man’s choice across all cities.

- Substantial increases seen in property values across IT & Technology Hubs in Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai.

More City Specific Details can be downloaded here.

Zimmo.be launched its brand new iPad application just last month. Zimmo.be HD claims the app is the first real estate iPad app on the Belgian market.

The company is an online real estate search engine that crawls professional and private properties, from over  3000 websites, and presents them on their website, iPhone – and iPad app. Zimmo.be is perceived as the innovator in the Belgian real estate portal market. The portal also had the scoop on launching the first Belgian iPhone app back in 2010.

Jonas Leskens, Conversation Manager Zimmo.be explains: “Our goal was to present our huge range of properties in the best possible way, so that house seekers could discover their dream home sitting in their comfortable couch.

Searching for properties takes a lot of time and energy, so we wanted to make it easier to discover interesting properties. The iPad is the perfect tool for laid-back searching. We noticed that many people were visiting our website with this unit. Therefore we decided to develop a native iPad application late last year.

It must be said, we are the first Belgian real estate portal that launches a paid app, but intensive home seekers are willing to pay for applications which make life easier. ”

Searching with a tablet on a regular website still requires much energy and effort. Although they paid a lot of attention to the aesthetics and usability of the website, searching through the Zimmo.be HD app is much easier and faster because it uses the strengths of the iPad. These include the possibility to draw your favorite region onto a map with your finger or even easier, you can immediately see which properties are for sale or rent in your area.

While developing the app they kept two user profiles in mind, home seekers who like to see properties on a map and people who like to see the properties on a list. When the user saves interesting properties on his/her iPad, they are also saved on the Zimmo.be website and vice versa. This is also the case for searches. This way the search criteria does not have to be repeated. Personal notes are easily added to the search as well, so to not forget any details about the property of choice.

The Zimmo.be iPad app is currently available at € 1.59 at the appstore.

Promo code to test the app: KRNATALTAMMN

WhatHouse.co.uk is gearing up to host its What House? Awards 2012. Commonly referred  to in the industry as ‘The Oscars of the housebuilding industry’, the event is in its 31st year, and it is regarded as the most prestigious New Homes award in the UK.

The Awards unveil exciting, dynamic new developers, delivering pioneering projects to their local markets, as well as highlighting the innovations of the industry’s major housebuilders who build across the country.

Each year, any number of entries are invited from housebuilders, developers and housing associations, large and small.

When all entries have been received, an extensive panel of property experts, including architects, surveyors, property writers and industry specialists, will prepare a shortlist of the best entries in each category.

All winners will receive a plaque signifying a Gold, Silver or Bronze award for each category. The prestigious Housebuilder of the Year has only one award.

Award-winning housebuilders and developments, through an integrated PR campaign, will receive widespread national, local and digital media coverage, promoting the builders of the best new homes in Britain.

The housebuilding industry’s event of the year, in the presence of the biggest and most influential names in the property market, will be held at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, on Friday 16th November 2012.

This year’s Awards prospectus is now available to download.

The deadline for sending in your entries will be Monday 16th July.

Spanish-based Nuroa.es, an online real estate portal, has joined forces with another Spanish company, Callejero.net . The new collaboration between the two companies allows users of Callejero.net to search and find a home throughout Spain, in almost every corner of the country, thanks to the millions of real estate ads of Nuroa.es.

From now on, when a user searches for a mailing address in Callejero.net he/she will find an overview of real estate listings of homes for sale and/or rent in the same address searched. With a simple click on the ad, the user will be redirected to Nuroa.es where he/she will be able to view a more complete listing of available homes in the particular area.

Nuroa.es is a property search engine which aggregates all online real estate ads on one single website. Now with Nuroa, the process of looking for apartments and houses both for sale and rent should be stress-free and faster for users. Through this collaboration, now more than 3 million real estate listings of Nuroa.es  will be available available in Callejero.net. Oriol Blasco, CEO and founder of Nuroa commented on the partnership, “This is a clear win-win agreement. Callejero is a very well known brand in Spain, and we are offering them and to their users a direct access to the bigger pool of real estate ads for sale and rent in the country. For us it helps increasing our market share, of already 1 million users in Spain, by promoting our platform through a different channel.”

Callejero.net is an important point of reference on the Internet for interactive search addresses and maps. It also provides search services routes between two points, weather, company searches and related services. With this agreement with Nuroa.ex, Callejero.net is expanding its range of local services available to users. Manuel Merino, CEO of Callejero said “This collaboration helps us to expand the range of services offered in Callejero.net with a high quality partner like Nuroa. Being able to integrate the complete listings of Nuroa allows home searchers to look up for a property saving time and money”.

Edina Realty was thrust into the news in November of 2011, when it became the first Real Estate Brokerage to cease listing its properties on Third Party Aggregators’ websites.

Since then San Diego-based Abbott Realty Group took to YouTube with a very public declaration on the company’s decision to also stop syndicating listings to third-party websites, including Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.

In the past year, other brokerage companies have evaluated their marketing tools and come to the conclusion that real estate listing syndication websites do not serve their best interest, or that of the consumer, raising concerns over data inaccuracies and confusion with branding of listings.

Although Edina Realty was the first to ‘pull the plug’ and it inspired others to follow, they continued syndicating to Realtor.com and worked with the Move, Inc. team to get answers to better evaluate their marketing plan. As the brokerage never syndicated to Zillow in the first place, the only portal the company ceased syndicating to was Trulia. Now Edina Realty has announced they will not send property listings to Realtor.com either, stating their new policy is to no longer syndicate to non-broker controlled websites.

Edina Realty stated that they are participating in a nationwide outcry against non-broker-controlled websites over concerns with data inaccuracy and consumer privacy, and that sales leads on many search sites often go to the highest paying agent rather than the listing agent or agent with market knowledge.

“Consumers are getting the short end of the stick on these sites because there’s no guarantee that the property data is accurate, and it’s difficult to tell who the listing broker is,” said Bob Peltier, president and CEO of Edina Realty Home Services. Further explaining that non-broker syndicators and third party aggregators don’t have the same legal obligations as brokers, so they are not held to the same high standards of data accuracy and customer service.

According to the company, consumers cannot easily tell who the listing broker is on Realtor.com, and there is no easy way for them to connect with the Edina Realty listing agent on Realtor.com unless the agent has paid to be featured alongside their property listing.

Though Edina no longer displays its entire database on Trulia.com, agents have always had the option to work with Trulia.com directly to upload their own listings.