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 traffic to the market leading realestate.com.au.

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

Ownership

homehound.com.au is a partnership between Property Page Pty Ltd (PPL) and Independent Digital Media (the digital division of Independent Print Media Group).

PPL is owned by the real estate industry’s major franchise groups. The shareholders are Century 21, L.J. Hooker, Ray White and Raine and Horne – all members of the National Real Estate Franchise Association (NREFA).

Market Position

homehound.com.au is fourth in the Australian residential property portal market as per Nielsen Netratings (August 2008)

Key Measurements
(as at July 2008)

• 4,000 real estate agent offices subscribing – around 42% of the Australian market
• 200,000 properties for rent and for sale on the site
• 420,000 unique visitors each month (Nielsen Netratings)
• 8m page impressions (Nielsen Netratings)

Market Coverage

All of Australia.

Advertising Model

Licensed Real Estate offices list their properties for free on homehound.com.au for a regular listing. Members can opt to pay to upgrade their listings.

Consumers can not advertise listings directly on the site – they must use a licensed real estate agent.

Homehound.com.au generates revenues from display advertising from 3rd parties and Google ads.

Financials

To be completed

Site Sections

The key sections of the website are:

• Homes for sale
• Homes for rent
• Directory of real estate agents
• Fact sheets
• Share accomodation (link to third party side easyroommate.com)

Technology

The site uses some Ajax technology and is heavily reliant on Google maps.

Key Management

The key management are:

• David Burkett – CEO (Independent Digital Media)

History

Around 2000, propertypage.com.au was launched by Property Page Pty Ltd – owned by top franchise groups Century 21, L.J. Hooker, Ray White, and Raine and Horne. The objecive of the site was to be the industry site and to take on the market leader realestate.com.au. However the site failed to gain traction and around 2003, Property Page Pty Ltd did a deal with the Indepentent Print Media Group (IPMG) and homehound.com.au was born.

homehound.com.au never really lived up to the expectation that it would take on realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. The site was heavily backed in the IPMG print publications however still remained a predominantly Sydney focused site. With the sale of the print assets of IPMG to New Limited, homehound.com.au lost much of its marketing support.

In 2007, the site underwent a facelift and over the last 12 months has strongly increased traffic. With the demise of myhome.com.au in mid 2008, homehound.com.au is now in 3rd place in the Australian market.

Recent Press

Read recent Media Releases here for homehound.com.au

1. IPMG May Be Looking to Sell homehound.com.au

   It is rumoured that Independent Print Media Group may be looking to sell Australia's number 3 portal site - homehound.com.au. Read on for more ... ...

2. 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, [...]...

3. 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....

4. 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 [...]...

5. 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 [...]...