Yesterday, Greg Ellis, CEO/Managing Director presented an inside look of some of the features of the new site to a large group of agents at the realestate.com.au ‘Open For Inspection’ event in Sydney.
From what Greg Ellis said, part of their future plans for innovation within the new site upgrade means that we can look forward to extra “Product & Consumer Features being released approximately every 90 days”.
The new look site has been “designed to improve consumer experience” Greg said, and that they plan to “continue to be best in class for finding property”.
One of the key points emphasised to agents in attendance was that their site will help agents “Win Listings, Build a Rent Roll and Sell Property” and that REA based their design around 3 value propositions.
1. Valued by Consumers :- Find – Discover – Share ( ie share – “leverage the networks that consumers trust, their family & friends via Facebook & Twitter“).
2. Valued by Agents :- Win new listings, Build your brand, Agent profile, Sell & Rent Property and Cost Effective.
3. Valued by Vendors :- Predictable & Provable.
Greg Ellis also covered some of the recent changes made that will impact the sites use:-
For all site users there has been a New Home Page, Enhanced Search, Multiple Views (Gallery View, List View & Map View) Compare Features (pointed out that the agents logo appears in the middle of the browsers computer screen) and MyRealEstate (an improved ability to store information on the site).
The suite of products for agents discussed were:- Suburb Profile Sponsorship, Suburb Sponsorship (IAB size ads), Exclusive Agent Showcase (No longer Guaranteed Top Spot but rather made available on every results page within that search), Feature Agent (a section of the site which has seen a 400% increase in traffic), Feature Property (appears as featured in List View, Gallery View & Map View) and eBrochure ( currently with over 800,000 people registered ).
An Insight Into The Future
Greg Ellis also announced that Realestate.com.au will shortly be releasing ‘Premiere Property’ which looks like it will appear on the top of the search results like the ‘old’ Guaranteed Top Spot but the ‘Premiere Property’ will open to a property page which features both the property & the agents details and branding exclusively (‘No Third Party Advertisers’).
Pricing was not discussed at this stage for ‘Premier Property’ but I can imagine it won’t come cheap when you consider the amount of revenue they could raise by keeping the advertising on these new pages.
Also, he mentioned that their Mobile site has already had 450,000 UB’s and they plan to have a Mobile/Social product which enables sharing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & RSS.
Finally, Greg Ellis felt that there was also a great opportunity existing for agents to promote their profile via the Local Voices section of their site.
Richard Freudenstein, Chairman of REA Board then came on to say that he was “pleased that so many customers were involved in the development of the new site” and congratulated the management team of REA because “the site was delivered on time and on budget”.