realestate.com.au (Updated 9/2008)

realestate.com.au is Australia’s largest residential property portal with 4.1 million visitors to the site each month.  These visitors can search 430,000+ for sale and for rent listings from 8,300+ agent offices or 95% of the market. 

realestate.com.au was launched in 1997 and in the year ended 30 June 2008 had revenues of A$106m.

realestate.com.au was the foundation of the REA Group that now operates 22 websites in 10 countries around the world.

Ownership | Market Position | Key Measurements | Market Coverage | Advertising Model | Financials | Site Sections | Technology | Key Management | History | Recent Press

Ownership

realestate.com.au is operated by the REA Group who is listed on the Australian stock exchange as realestate.com.au Limited (ASX:REA). The REA Group is 58% owned by News Corporation through its subsidiary News Limited in Australia.

Market Position

realestate.com.au is the dominant residential site in the Australian property portal market and is the clear leader in each state.

Key Measurements
(as at 30 June 2008)

• 8,373 real estate agent offices subscribing – around 95% of the Australian market

•  430,000 properties for rent and for sale on the site (note – some of these are sold listings and therefore not active)

• 4.1m unique visitors each month (Nielsen Netratings)

• 497m page impressions (Nielsen Netratings)

Market Coverage

All of Australia.

Advertising Model

The site derives the majority of its revenue from the real estate offices. It charges each office a flat annual subscription fee that allows them to list as many properties as they would like each month. These subscriptions are purchased on a per office basis. The monthly subscription fee is around $500. There are two subscription types – standard subscription and a platinum subscription. The platinum subscription has the agents brand on all listings on the search results page and the agent receives 5 feature properties each month. Around 65% of agents purchase the platinum subscription.
Consumers can not advertise listings directly on the site – they must use a licensed real estate agent.
In addition to the base subscription fee, realestate.com.au also derives revenue from charging agents additional fees for “depth” products. These include:

• Feature Properties are displayed on the search results pages, these are displayed before standard listings and have a larger picture than a standard listing.
• Guaranteed Top Spot is the first listing displayed on each of the search results pages and is purchased exclusively on a per week basis by agents.
• eBrochures are emailed to registered consumers who use the site and each eBrochure contains the details of one property. It is akin to a letter box drop and can be sent by the agent at any point in time. Only those consumers who are interested in properties in the suburb of the eBrochure receive it.

realstate.com.au also generates revenues from the following sources:

• Display advertising from 3rd parties (banks primarily), developers and real estate offices.
• Share accommodation on a per advertisement basis.

Financials

• $106 million in revenue for the year ended 30 June 2008

Site Sections

The key sections of the website are:

• Homes for sale
• Homes for rent
• Share accommodation
• Directory of real estate agents
• A renovation section with detailed articles
• A new homes and land section
• Retirement section

Technology

The site is built on a LAMP technology platform, which is a platform based upon the open source technologies Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl.

Key Management

The key management of realestate.com.au are:

• Jamie Pride – GM Australia
• Bill Russell – NSW State Manager
• Greg Oddy – Vic State Manager
• Louis Moore – Qld State Manager
• Kym Maguiness – SA State Manager
• Brad Kelly – WA State Manager

History

realestate.com.au started life in a garage in Doncaster Melbourne in 1995.  It was run by a company called Netwide Solutions Pty Ltd (later to become realestate.com.au Ltd) who also provided web hosting, ISP services and web design.  Netwide Solutions was founded by Marty Howell and Karl Sabljak. 

Originally the site was called Virtual Realty (check out the old site) and was launched in late 1996.  With the acquisition of the realestate.com.au URL in 1996, the site transformed and the business had focus – the Australian online real estate industry.

Between 1997 and 2001, the realestate.com.au grew slowly as the online property advertising industry in Australia was in its infancy.  By 2001, the site has 1,200 agents subscribing (around 15% of the industry), revenues of around $4m, and 240,000 unique browsers.

In early 2001 News Corporation acquired 44% of the realestate.com.au Ltd business and Simon Baker was installed as CEO of the business.  Over the following 4 years, the business focused on the growth of the realestate.com.au site with the prime target the acquisition of real estate agent offices.  Quickly realestate.com.au established a lead over its main rivals domain.com.au and property.com.au with property.com.au being acquired and integrated into realestate.com.au in 2005.

Once the business had reached the milestone of over 50% of the Australian real estate offices subscribing to it, the team at realestate.com.au commenced rolling out depth products to the market.  The underlying strategy was to have a high level of competition by agents in each suburb so that they would want to buy depth products to stand out from the other real estate agents in the suburb.  To gain this high level of competition, realestate.com.au purposefully kept its subscription prices low.

realestate.com.au now has over 8,000 subscribing agents (around 95% of the market) and 4m+ unique browsers using the site each month.  It is double the size of its nearest competitor, domain.com.au.

Recent Press

Read recent Media Releases here for REA Group.

1. realestateview.com.au (Updated 9/2008)

   realestateview.com.au is Australia’s 4th largest property portal site, primarily focusing on the Victorian real estate market. Founded in 2001, realestateview.com.au is a joint venture between the Real Estate Institute of Victoria and leading Victorian real estate agents. realestateview.com.au focuses primarily on advertising Victorian properties but also offers other property related internet services for agents such as research [...]...

2. realestatecommercial.com.au (Updated 9/2008)

   realestatecommercial.com.au is the latest entry into the Australian commercial property portal market place. Launched in July 2008, the site is already gaining traction with 200+ agents using the site (although it is not clear how many are paying for the service). However it has a long way to go to compete against the clear market leader, realcommercial.com.au - owned and operated by the REA Group, and second place, commercialrealestate.com.au....

3. homehound.com.au (Updated 9/2008)

   homehound.com.au is the 3rd most popular site in the Australian market and promotes itself as the industry owned site that takes a simplistic ‘google-esque’ approach to searching for property. homehound.comau has undergone rapid growth in UB’s over the last year and now has 420k+ unique visitors to the site each month.  However this is still 12% of the [...]...

4. myhome.com.au (Updated 9/2008)

   myhome.com.au is a recent entrant to the Australian property portal landscape.  Launched in 2007 as a joint venture by Publishing & Broadcasting Limited (PBL) and Microsoft, the site promised take on the encumbents realestate.com.au and domain.com.au at their own game.  However after only 1 year and investment of over $20m in building and marketing the business, [...]...

5. Price Freeze at realestate.com.au

   REA Group owned realestate.com.au have announced a price freeze on residential agent subscriptions until 2010....