Over the past months the New Zealand market has seen some significant action in the property portal market.
trademe.co.nz
Most recently, last week, New Zealand website trademe.co.nz announced a price increase for single rental property listings. The fee to list a residential property for rent has increased from $69 to $99.
The company says: “There are no success fees in this category and you can relist for free until rented.”
It is currently $399 per month for agents to place unlimited rental listings, or $699 per month for unlimited sales and rentals listings.
trademe.co.nz is New Zealand’s leading real estate classifieds website, and also lists jobs, auto and other items for sale. The price increase comes after TradeMe’s parent company, Fairfax Digital, which is part of Fairfax Media, announced its half year results for the six months ending 28 December 2008.
While Fairfax Media as a whole saw profits slide, and reported a nett loss, the company’s online businesses reported relatively good news - revenue of $135.1 million, an increase of 13.7 percent.
Interestingly, New Zealand’s market leading classifieds website trademe.co.nz was the stand out success story in the Fairfax Media results, with Trade Me New Zealand posting a revenue increase of 22.1% with EBITDA up 17.2%.
zoodle.co.nz
New Zealand also has a new property information website, zoodle.co.nz, bringing together in depth data on 1.5 million New Zealand homes. Behind zoodle.co.nz is New Zealand’s number two property portal, the industry backed realestate.co.nz.
zoodle.co.nz draws a data from a range of sources, including realestate.co.nz and Terralink, as well as Stats New Zealand, Quotable Valuation, the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand and the Department of Building and Housing. It also incorporates mapping courtesy of Google, including the recently launched Google StreetView for New Zealand, and encourages user-generated content.
The company hopes zoodle.co.nz will help consumers make informed decisions. Alistair Helm who is Managing Director of zoodle.co.nz and CEO of realestate.co.nz said:
“We know what people want and need to know when house-hunting, what’s most important in helping them make what is likely to be the most significant purchasing decision of their lives. Zoodle provides consumers with an, informative, intuitive, interactive resource, one that will be of great benefit to those looking to buy a home in an emerging buyer’s market.”
The launch of zoodle.co.nz, and its links to realestate.co.nz suggest a strong start to the year for the New Zealand number two player.
REA Group exits New Zealand Market
In November last year the REA Group made a decision to exit the residential New Zealand market, and close down allrealestate.co.nz. They still retain their commercial portal, realcommercial.co.nz.
After announcing the closure, the REA Group entered into a marketing agreement that saw traffic from their allrealestate.co.nz portal re-directed to realestate.co.nz.
At the time, Alistair Helm, CEO of realestate.co.nz, said “This alliance is great news for New Zealand’s real estate agents and consumers; because together with the REA Group we can run a much stronger real estate web portal than if we continued to compete as two separate portals. We believe this will mean a more efficient and cost competitive solution for the real estate industry as compared to all other media options.”
realestate.co.nz have seen their web traffic rise ever since. Many speculate that realestate.co.nz will now overtake market leader trademe.co.nz.
realestate.co.nz
In a post to propertyportalwatch.com, realestate.co.nz CEO Alistair Helm spread some good news for agents, saying:
“I can categorically state that we will not be increasing our subscription fees in 2009.”
Google Street View
Last December Google Street View became available in New Zealand, and all the major portals have incorporated it into their mapping functionality.
Related posts:
- realestate.co.nz Now the Place to Be
- Google Street View Arrives in NZ
- Top 50 Overseas Property Portals
- Keep Tabs on Your Property Portals
- More Property Hunters Looking to Agent Sites in NZ
- Developments at domain.com.au
- New Ad Deal a Threat to Portals?
- Price Freeze at realestate.com.au
- Seven Portals the Minimum: home.co.uk
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