How To Get More From RealEstate.com.au Without Paying Extra Money

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If I was starting a real estate agency within Australia, one of the first online subscription based services I’d probably sign up for would be realestate.com.au simply because I know that I would need to be able to offer this service out to potential Sellers, Landlords, Buyers & Tenants to compete in the marketplace.

Maybe, some agents or suppliers may disagree & think that there would be something more important to sign up for, but in the early stages I’d put REA ahead of even creating my own website (a very close 2nd), simply because that’s where I believe the majority of client’s would want their property advertised & it’s also where I could generate the fastest exposure, enquiry & revenue stream online.

So with this in mind, I went out on a fact finding mission & visited the team at REA in their Sydney office to learn more about using their site better.

Let’s face it if you have to pay for a subscription to realestate.com.au, wouldn’t you want to know how to get the best bang for your buck out of their site? I know I would.

And that’s why I’ve decided to share a series of tips that I hope will help agents use their site more effectively, without having to pay them any extra money.

Here goes with Tip #1

Tip # 1 – Find Agent Search.

As part of setting up your realestate.com.au account, each agent gets an allocation of 10 suburbs where the agent’s details can appear within the Find Agent Search part of the realestate.com.au site.

This is where the agents appear in alphabetical order with your logo & agency name under each selected suburb.

This is an extremely important part of the realestate.com.au site, because if someone is considering selling or renting their property, then there is a high possibility that they will use the Find Agent part of the site to locate an agent.

And, as I often say during my seminars, “if a client can’t find you online then they won’t be able to do business with you.”

So, with this in mind, it’s important to make sure your company name appears in as many suburbs as you can in the Find Agent Search for your service area & also for the suburbs immediately surrounding your service area.

It appears that some agents may not be aware of this, but when setting up your account, from what realestate.com.au have told me you don’t have to include the suburb your agency is in within the suburbs you nominate.

Apparently, your agency immediately appears within the Find Agent Search section under your suburb anyway.

I don’t have a current realestate.com.au account to test this on, but I have it on good authority from the powers that be back at realestate.com.au HQ that this is correct.

Which means that if you’re not already doing this, you can now cover 11 suburbs (that’s one whole extra suburb) within the Find Agent Search & maximize your reach out to potential sellers, landlords, etc who may be searching for an agent within that extra suburb in your Service Area at no extra cost.

I hope you’ve found this first tip helpful. I’ll be back soon with Tip # 2.

Action Step # 1: Login to your admin section of realestate.com.au & check what suburbs you have allocated for your account & if you have included the suburb that your office is located in, remove it & insert an extra suburb. Once you’ve made the changes, make sure you check your work by typing in all 11 suburbs (including your office suburb) into the Find Agent Search section of the realestate.com.au site to see that your office appears within every suburb that you have identified as well as the suburb that your office exists in.

If my information from REA is correct, you should be able to have 11 suburbs covered instead of the standard 10 that many agents may currently have.

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6 Comments

  • Glenn Rogers
    Posted December 16, 2009 at 5:34 pm 0Likes

    I think you absolutely have to be on Domain as well, if a potential client finds you arent on both that could easily cost you the listing.
    And don’t forget both are listing tools too, if property owners see your name they may contact you and the more often they see you the better.

  • Greg Vincent
    Posted December 18, 2009 at 9:22 am 0Likes

    Glenn, it seems to depend a lot on where the agency is located.

    As I do further investigation about how to get the best results from REA some of the information I’ll be providing may also apply to some of the other sites. (especially due to the XML feed).

    These series of tips are intended to help agents make the most that they possibly can out of their subscription.

  • Tatiana Mijalica
    Posted December 18, 2009 at 10:59 am 0Likes

    The suburbs agents appear in as a listing agent is not fed through via XML, rather is selected through the back end manually across all portals as per Greg’s instructions. If you manually update your 10 suburbs on REA, you should do the same for Domain as well.

  • Greg Vincent
    Posted December 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm 0Likes

    Thanks for clarifying the manual update for Domain to B2 readers Tatiana.

    I’d only mentioned XML feed in my previous comment, because I was thinking of some of the upcoming articles I’m putting together based around this series of REA tips. My apologies, if it caused any confusion.

  • Glenn Dias
    Posted December 24, 2009 at 8:55 am 0Likes

    Hi Greg, I found your blog on REA most interesting. Great website too – full of information. All the best. Glenn

  • Jason Rose
    Posted January 3, 2010 at 2:28 pm 0Likes

    Greg,

    you are offering good advice & tips once again. Keep up the good work.

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