Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 12th July 2010
*Google real estate fails to make an impression…for now
A year after its launch in Australia, Google real estate has failed to make a significant market impact, according to Simon Baker, the former CEO of Australia’s largest property portal.
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Source: Global edge
User Comments
It would take a fool to understimate the impact Google can have.
Like Peter says, it's only a matter of time.
Bury your head in the sand at your own peril.
Justin,
www.eyeonspain.com
I respectfully disagree completely with Simon's take on this and despite the authors claims, Google Real Estate is having an effect on the incumbent portals mindset.
Google is a slow breeder in the real estate space and more and more people everyday are listing with Google and more and more people everyday are using the services.
Google is actively getting property data, that's all they really care about at this stage. More and more agents are supporting Google Real Estate in Australia and the more agents, the more listings and the more listings, the more reason to return for potential buyers, investors, tenants and agents.
History has clearly shown that spending big on marketing a real estate portal before you have the listings is a completely and utter waste of money.
Case in point, the Packer owned Myhome.com.au had about 20% of the listings of the major portals - was completely free and the owners spent 10's of millions of dollars - only to fail.
Let's look at this again when we can really compare - 12 months after they have the same listing data as the big two realestate.com.au and domain.com.au, which should be around 2012 - 2013.
Then we will make a fair judgement on its success.
Peter Ricci,
Zooproperty.com