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The world’s most innovative portals
Innovation doesn’t always equal success. History is littered with examples of businesses that had the best ideas but lost out to better organised competitors. The Apple versus IBM battle in the PC market in the eighties is perhaps the most famous case study.
This is not a list of the best-looking and technically original real estate search engines, although there are some
Web 2.0 sites in the list. Instead we look at portals with innovative ideas that have delivered results or, at least in our opinion, have a good chance of delivering for advertisers.
The list has a bias towards English-language sites and portals that cater for overseas property. However, there are many great domestic portals in the US, UK and Australia which are just simply too good to leave out.
Properazzi
Launched in 2007,
Properazzi is perhaps the most ambitious property portal on the internet. Their aim is to be the world’s largest property search engine and with 3 million properties, they are well on their way to achieving this.
As domestic property purchase is localised, Properazzi is unlikely to make much of an impact on domestic markets (try searching for property in London on the site, it’s very difficult). However, its strength lies in overseas property. It translates its site architecture (but not property details) into 32 languages, providing potential access to an international audience. CEO Yannick Laclau says they receive over half a million uniques a month from a huge cross-section of countries. It’s free for agents to list, listings click to the agent’s site and they scrape your website automatically, so it’s also easy. Properazzi make money from featured properties, sponsored links and display advertising.
Lead Galaxy
Lead Galaxy is not a name that will roll-off the tongue for many readers as it doesn’t get a huge amount of publicity and its public facing sites are branded “Venture”, which can be confusing to the trade. However, it has a unique business model and an innovative approach to SEO which make it hugely popular with agents.
To our knowledge, it’s the only portal that allows agents to bid a price per lead. The higher agents bid, the higher they come in the listings creating an internal Google-style market place. On the SEO side they have created over 30 country-specific sites (not sub-domains) to help them attract relevant links. It may not be rocket science but it’s original and it works!
Medhead
Medhead is not a portal that will win any awards for design or innovative web 2.0 content. However, they have a new idea which fulfils a genuine market need. Many overseas agents are keen to target buyers in Northern Europe and Russia and they may have come up with a cost effective route to market. Their unique way of uploading and translating property information means agents fill in multiple choice questions and the answers are automatically translated into seven different languages. The ability of the foreign language sites to rank on Google in the respective countries will be key but these are generally less competitive markets so they stand a good chance.
Globrix
It’s not a totally original idea, as sites like Properazzi have similar business models. However,
Globrix is the first portal to use scraping technology with the aim of listing every property for sale and rent in the UK. CEO Daniel Lee says they now have 700,000 properties, making them the second largest UK portal behind Rightmove. UK agents can list for free and they make their money from display advertising. There are no immediate plans to list overseas property but they don’t rule it out. The proof of the pudding as ever will be in the marketing but the financial backing of News International suggests they should be taken seriously.
Rightmove
It’s the portal UK agents love to hate. They dominate the UK market and charge aggressively high prices (as any self-respecting PLC would).
Rightmove may not grab the headlines as great innovators but during the land grab of the early internet years they had some great ideas and executed them brilliantly.
- They were pioneers in the philosophy of keeping it simple, recognising that many of their customers were older, less internet-savvy users. They never allowed advertising and focused on the job at hand: selling property
- They were the first portal to roll out a significant field sales force which helped them build share and get branding in agent windows quicker than their rivals, who were doing it by telephone
- They were the first portal to advertise on television, most notably using ex-Arsenal and England footballer Ian Wright in their commercials.
Many will argue their success is down to their early distribution channel advantage, as they were owned by a consortium of the largest estate agents in the UK. It certainly helped but many management teams wouldn’t have achieved what they did.
Redfin
Redfin are pioneers in using the internet to lower transaction costs of both buyers and sellers of domestic property in the US. The portal provides a network of local agents around the United States (West Coast, Boston & Washington DC) which help sellers market and sell their property at significantly reduced rates. They use their portal to bring buyers to the table and incentivise them by kicking back two thirds of the commission they usually pay to agents (buyers as well as sellers pay commission in the US). Their business model doesn’t make them popular with competing agents but it’s certainly shaking up the markets it operates in.
Zillow.com
Zillow.com aim to list all homes in the US on their site. Only a fraction of the 80 million homes are for sale but most have a market value or “Zestimate”, which attracts large numbers of “curtain twitchers”. As well as a huge range of local data services, users can earmark properties for potential purchase and owners can issue “tempt me” prices to would be buyers. They make their money from advertising from ancillary services rather than agents. Trulia have a similar business model and consumer offer (they have pricing heat maps and local forums) and Zoopla has just launched a comparable model in the UK. These businesses won’t generate leads for agents but in the US at least they are disrupting the market. Interestingly, Finnish portal
Igglo, which pioneered this model, went bankrupt last month.
Realestate.com.au
Realestate.com.au dominates the Australian property market with nearly 95% of Australian estate agents listing on the portal. This wasn’t always the case. In 2001 they had an equal 15% market share with their biggest rival. It was their innovative trade marketing and sales tactics that helped to see off the competition.
According to CEO, Simon Baker, their field sales teams regularly offered to clean estate agent windows in return for them putting up branded stickers and signage. In response to a smear campaign from a competitor, they mounted a series of localised direct marketing campaigns encouraging vendors to request their agents listed with them. Both tactics helped them build agent listings and drive consumer awareness to beat their rivals. They many not have all the bells and whistles of some of new web 2.0 sites but like Rightmove in the UK, their marketing ideas and slick execution helped them to go onto to dominate the market.
Daft.ie
Although not as slick as some of it contemporaries across the Atlantic,
Daft has become the market leader in Ireland, according to ABC figures. It’s won numerous awards for business and innovation and should be seriously considered by agents and developers keen to target Irish buyers of overseas property.
User Comments
Take a look at www.priceonapplication.com. We specialise in advertising properties with values in excess of £1m globally. A very niche market for luxury property buyers and sellers.
M Phillips,
POA
Hi Emma,
Only one of the portals in the list is a paid advertiser. Our editorial is totally independent. We will look to review your website in the near future.
Best
Ashley
Ashley Rigg,
Globaledge.co.uk
Has this list been compiled only from portals that advertise on the site?
check our www.sevendecasa.eu for a truly NEW concept for a property portal. With an incredible introductory offer of buy 1 month and get the next 11 months completely free.
You get unlimited listing on the website, unlimited listing on the mobile internet site, full ues of the SMS service and much much more - check us out, we value all feedback.
www.sevendecasa.eu
thanks
Emma Haller,
SeVendeCasa.eu
Nestoria is great I'd also add Mouseprice.net to the list.
B Molman,
Mouseprice.net
Great picks and interesting read ...
Even more innovative is a redfin-esque company, Territory Real Estate, that also uses the internet to lower transaction costs but adds a twist by working with buyers for at a flat fee. With plans to grow nationally this summer redfin's model that takes a % of the %commission will pale in comparison. Territory will change the way real estate is searched and how it is bought. Keep your eyes peeled ...
coming to your town next:
WWW.Territoryre.com
mem,
Territory Real Estate
I'll have added Nestoria to the list
K Campbell,
Property Frontiers