Property Portal Watch

Google Rumoured to be Hiring Online Real Estate Sales People

Simon Baker — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:01:22 +0000

Rumours emanating out of Sydney today indicate that Google is aggressively looking to hire a field sales team to target the Sydney real estate market. Sources said that Google had approached a number of sales people from domain.com.au in an effort to hire them as field sales people for the Google real estate initiative. Sources also believed that Google may be initially targeting the Inner West region of Sydney.

Surprisingly, there were no rumoured approaches to sales people from the market leader, realestate.com.au.

If these rumours do pan out to be true, it would be a major increase in Google’s efforts to compete with the incumbent market leaders realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. It is also probably a recognition that the approach of targeting sales at the franchise group level only is not working so well and a realisation that agents don’t self service.

Earlier this month, Google announced a marketing partnership with LJ Hooker. Industry insiders believe that this deal is worth between $300k and $500k and will promote LJ Hooker across Google Maps. It is also believed that no other franchise group has yet entered any formal marketing partnership with Google and franchise groups such as Ray White and Century 21 are only uploading their listings to Google Maps.

The hiring of a field sales force probably means that Google will, over time, aggressively offer its services to real estate offices through Australia. The question is what will that offer be and what is the likely take up by real estate agents. It also raises some longer term questions about relationship between Google and the two market leaders (realestate.com.au and domain.com.au), both large PPC spenders on Google.

New Partnerships for Nestoria

Alice Allan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:24:30 +0000

Property search engine Nestoria has recently entered into three white-label partnerships in Spain, Germany, and the UK.

In Spain, nestoria.es has teamed up with El Correo Gallego, a regional media group based in Galicia, to provide their property search. nestoria.es explains that this is its first property search partnership.

In Germany, nestoria.de has linked with gutefrage.net, a new social network focused on asking and answering questions. Nestoria says gutefrage.net is one of the top 20 German language websites in terms of users.

In the UK, nestoria.co.uk has integrated with Buyers Edge, a service that helps match prospective buyers with qualified buying agents. Buyers Edge users can now search the nestoria.co.uk database in a co-branded environment.

These new partnerships mirror similar deals with The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and Channel 4 in the UK, and with Financial Times Deutschland, Capital magazine and Wetter in Germany, amongst others.

New Look at immobilienscout24.de

Alice Allan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:53:30 +0000

Leading German property portal immobilienscout24.de has just launched a new design for its commercial real estate section.

According to a statement from the portal, the redesign offers improved navigation, and the areas for property seekers and advertisers have been more clearly separated.

Along with property listings, immobilienscout24.de’s commercial section offers a range of other information, from tips on business creation to a section for those running catering services.

The past 12 months have seen immobilienscout24.de make a concerted effort to consolidate its place at the top of the German market. Most recently, the portal launched a wide-ranging ad campaign that saw its unique user number soar to a record 4.6 million in January.

The portal’s iPhone app is also proving extremely popular, with 140,000 downloads registered in the six weeks since its release.

ziprealty.com Reports Growth in 2009

Alice Allan — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:47:16 +0000

ziprealty.com, a US-based online brokerage, has posted full year revenue of US$123.1 million for 2009, which its says represents its 11th consecutive year of revenue growth.

The number of closed transactions was up 46.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier at a total of 6,355. Q4 revenue was also up to $33.9 million, which is a 35.4 percent year-on-year increase.

Despite these increases in revenue, the company still reported a Q4 net loss of $2.1 million, or $0.11 per share, compared to a net loss of $2.7 million, or $0.14 per share, in Q4 2008.

Pat Lashinsky, ziprealty.com’s president and CEO, had this to say about the results:

“ziprealty.com transacted more than $5 billion in residential property for customers in 2009 leading to double digit revenue gains versus the prior period. Improvement in key metrics throughout the year drove results, including record website visits, higher agent productivity and growing transaction volumes. We were also pleased to exceed our outlook for revenue and deliver on our bottom-line commitment, while maintaining a cash balance consistent with three quarters ago.

Looking ahead, we are focused on initiatives that are designed to promote profit growth. First, we are committed to gaining market share and driving profitability in our existing markets. Second, we intend to build on our recent listings success and continue to grow this side of our market opportunity. Third, we plan to stay at the forefront of innovation so that our agents and customers benefit from advancements in technology. Finally, we will target referral revenue growth by partnering with brands that are relevant to our growing user base. We look forward to progress on these fronts in 2010 and into an eventual recovery.”

ziprealty.com expects net revenues for 2010 to grow between 10 percent and 20 percent over 2009 levels. Net loss for 2010 is expected to be narrower than the 2009 net loss, and adjusted EBITDA is expected to be positive.

Foreclosures Boost Baird & Warner

Alice Allan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:07:42 +0000

Chicago brokerage firm Baird & Warner have announced the addition of a foreclosures search option to their homepage, claiming it has had a major impact on website traffic.

Visitors to bairdwarner.com can now choose to search for foreclosures in their area and in other markets, refining results by criteria such as price, house size, and schools.

“We’re the only company to offer this kind of data in a consumer-friendly format,” says Charles Melidosian, the company’s chief information officer, “and since our soft launch of it last month, we’ve seen a 276 percent increase in usage.”

“The foreclosure transaction is vastly different today than it was five or ten years ago,” adds John D’Ambrogio, Baird & Warner’s vice president of strategic development. “Years ago only a few people specialised in these transactions. Often buyers wouldn’t even seen the property, they merely invested in its potential.”

Move Report Reveals Difficulties

Alice Allan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:41:50 +0000

Move Inc’s annual report has shed light on why the company registered another drop in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2009, and warns there could be more tough times to come.

Move, which runs top US real estate website realtor.com, explains that its revenue decreased by US$30.1 million – 12 percent – to $212.0 million over 2009, compared to $242.1 million in 2008.

“The decrease in revenue was primarily due to a decrease in our realtor.com and New Homes products,” the report states. “We experienced lower Featured Homes and listing enhancement revenue on realtor.com directly related to reduced purchasing by one large broker customer.”

“In addition, there was reduced spending on listing enhancement and Featured Homes products by our agent customers due to general economic conditions partially offset by increased revenues generated by our improved Featured Community product,” the report continues.

The report goes on to outline the other areas where realtor.com’s advertisers are cutting back, including display advertising, rentals featured listings, and lead generation for moving services.

“Entering 2010, delinquencies are expected to continue to be double that of foreclosures, causing uncertainty in the price floor within various markets,” Move’s report explains.

“This coupled with the fact that banks have significantly tightened their credit standards for mortgage loans will make home purchases in the upper end of the market that much more difficult. We believe these market conditions will continue to put pressure on spending by real estate professionals and brokers in the next year.”

While Move isn’t optimistic about 2010, at least one analyst thinks the company could be in for an improved year. investopedia.com’s Sham Gad maintains that the company’s operational changes throughout 2009, along with the hiring of CEO Steve Berkowitz, have put it in a strong position.

“[T]he gem here is Berkowitz and his track record at turnarounds, notably with online site Ask Jeeves,” Gad says. “Despite the quarterly numbers, shares were up over 11 percent on the earnings news. Continued success with the operational turnaround will likely attract more attention to the stock.”

zillow.com Defends Zestimates

Alice Allan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:00:00 +0000

zillow.com’s home valuations, known as Zestimates, have come under fire in a study published in The Appraisal Journal’s Winter 2010 issue.

The study analysed 2006 data for 2,045 properties in Arlington, Texas to conclude that zillow.com’s estimates overvalue property by 10 percent compared to the sale price. The results go on to outline more discrepancies found between the 2006 data and zillow.com’s Zestimates:

“zillow.com also overestimates values for approximately 80 percent of the houses in this sample by at least 1 percent; 0.88 percent of home values are underestimated by more than 10 percent, again compared to the sale price. If this were an automated appraisal district model used to estimate values for tax purpose, this would cause considerable concern.”

zillow.com spokesperson Jill Simmons defended the website’s data in an interview with inman.com.

“Regardless of the paper’s conclusion, it’s out of date and limited in scope,” Simmons is quoted as saying. “What’s important to our users is our accuracy today, not our accuracy from three years ago. To that end, zillow.com publishes updated accuracy for every county in the country several times a year, accessible on every page of the website, for consumers, professionals and researchers alike.”

rentjungle.com Aims for One-Stop Shop

Alice Allan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:08:19 +0000

With the latest Hitwise results revealing “apartments for rent” as the third most popular real estate search term in the US, it seems rentjungle.com has chosen an opportune time to relaunch.

This US-based search engine is aiming to be a “one-stop destination” for renters, scouring over 1 million listings from more than 10 websites including Craigslist, sublet.com, realtor.com, and mynewplace.com.

rentjungle.com displays these listings using Google Maps, allowing users to click through to see more information at the original source. Users can also add properties to their favourites, share them on Facebook, and see them through Google Street View.

“Bouncing around from site to site wastes a lot of time,” says Rick Ferris, the website’s founder. “rentjungle.com lets users focus their energy on searching for actual apartments, not for sites listing apartments—which is all you get when you search with Google.”

Along with rental listings, rentjungle.com also provides advice articles on renting, a directory of useful websites for renters, market trends data, and a “compare your rent” feature.

Ferris is a real estate broker with over 30 years experience in residential and commercial realty, and has earned the CoStar Power Broker Award every year since 2002.

homeaway.com Buys Two More Sites

Alice Allan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:26:51 +0000

Holiday rentals website homeaway.com has acquired bedandbreakfast.com – a global website that lists B&Bs for sale as well as holiday deals – along with the publisher of Brazilian vacation rentals website aluguetemporada.com.br.

The terms of the deals were not disclosed. homeaway.com says it plans to operate both bedandbreakfast.com and aluguetemporada.com.br as independent brands.

homeaway.com adds that its acquisition of aluguetemporada.com.br will extend its virtual borders beyond North America and Europe and increase its total vacation rental listings to more than 475,000.

According to homeaway.com, bedandbreakfast.com lists more than 10,000 B&Bs across 100 countries, and aluguetemporada.com.br features more than 12,000 property listings located in Brazil.

As techcrunch.com reports, homeaway.com was valued at US$1.15 billion in 2008, when the company raised a $250 million in capital. It has acquired at least twelve vacation home rental websites including Homelidays, vrbo.com, vacationrentals.com, abritel.fr and ownersdirect.co.uk.

homeaway.com registered a significant gain in the latest Hitwise results for US real estate websites, jumping from 24th to 19th position.

Three More Mobile Offerings

Alice Allan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:30:51 +0000

Three more websites have launched mobile-based offerings over the past few days in an effort to attract property hunters on the move.

To begin with, global classifieds portal Locanto, which expanded to 10 new countries in early February, has launched a beta version of its mobile website.

Locanto, which currently sees 4 million unique visitors per month, says the new mobile version will provide access to listings from 38 countries and over 1,000 major cities.

The New York Times has also jumped into mobile property search with the release of its own iPhone application for apartment hunters. As businessinsider.com reports, the new app has a wide range of features and displays national and international listings as well as New York properties.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s privateproperty.co.za has launched an iPhone app despite what it describes as a “relatively small” iPhone market in the region.

“The iPhone application is part of our mobile strategy, which includes our own Mobi site, pprop.mobi, a java application for all brands of WAP enabled cell phones, and the Vodafone Live property channel,” explains Oliver Manickum, the portal’s product manager.

privateproperty.co.za chairman Justin Clarke believes the mobile market in Africa has the potential to leapfrog the web market.

“Handsets with Internet functionality are spreading around the continent and we believe that 70 percent of web users in Africa will never have access to a computer,” Clarke says. “It is certainly not inconceivable that mobile web search will overtake normal web in the near future.”