Category Archives: Advertising Property
Listings on the iPad
Dutch property portal jaap.nl loves to stay ahead of the curve. It’s constantly updating in its quest to take on market leader funda.nl – in fact it even launched a property search application to go with the release of Google Wave, Google’s vision for the future of email. So it’s hardly surprising that jaap.nl has jumped on the release of Apple’s iPad to show just how good listings can look on the device.
Smart phones are already changing the way people look for property, but jaap.nl’s application gives an idea of why the iPad could also gain plenty of attention from property seekers.
Ads Coming to Street View?
Google Street View has been added to so many real estate websites by now that it’s almost an expected part of the listing landscape. But there could be a change on the Street View horizon.
Google previously floated the idea of ads appearing in Street View that are tied to the listings in its Local Business Centre and Favourite Places program.
What makes it seem like more than an idea is Google’s recent filing of a patent application titled “Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising”. In other words, we could see something akin to virtual billboards appearing in a Street View image as users browse through an area.
Listing Tips from funda.nl
Leading Dutch property portal funda.nl recently commissioned market research to find out what consumers thought of it. The results are as revealing for agents as they were for the portal itself.
The research, conducted by Heliview, showed just how important video and interactive floor plans are when it comes to listings. 53 percent of respondents said they were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included, while 61 percent said they were likely to prefer listings if a video was available.
estatecreate.com Builds for Agents
We first reported on UK-based single property website creation tool estatecreate.com when it launched in February last year. At the time, it was pitched as a challenge to agents in that it offered an alternative selling tool for home owners.
After launching, estatecreate.com decided to include an agent-focused option in its subscription offerings, allowing agents to create single property websites to promote their clients properties.
Since then, it seems agents have been clamouring for an option that doesn’t involve them creating the websites on their own.
Looking for Realtors to Test a New Application – ListGlobally
The team at Classified AdVentures (owners of Property Ad Guru) has been working hard on a new product called ListGlobally. This application allows agents to advertise their listings on market leading property portals around the world.
For example, an agent in the US or Australia can up load a listing and have it appear in the international section of such market leading sites as Rightmove in the UK, Enormo, Immobiliare in Italy, and Immobilienscout24 in Germany. Over the coming months ListGlobally will be adding more partners to its distribution list.
Not only is this a great way to promote your listings to an international audience, it is also a great tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors when marketing to potential sellers.
If you would like to be a guinea pig and help us test the application for free, just go to www.listglobally.com and click the link on the home page to register for a free trial. Once we receive your request, we will be in touch via email with your login details.
Seven Portals the Minimum: home.co.uk
The results of a survey from home.co.uk, a UK-based property search engine, show some interesting trends in the listing habits of UK agencies.
home.co.uk surveyed 14,660 agencies to come up with the results, which show 93 percent of respondents list their properties on at least one portal. However, just over 20 percent of respondents were found to advertise on only one portal. Which was the most popular portal? You guessed it: rightmove.co.uk.
Big Changes at zillow.com
We knew something was up at zillow.com when it posted a “site down temporarily” note on its blog on Monday.
The next post confirmed our suspicions: zillow.com was adding the option to list rental properties on its US-based real estate marketplace. By the next morning, zillow.com was already touting the first ten listings to take advantage of the new option, and dealing with a wave of questioning regarding its new pricing strategy: US$9.95 for a 180 day listing.
The comments were relatively quiet on zillow.com’s own blog, but over at 1000watt blog and agentgenius.com things were different, prompting zillow.com’s spokespeople to respond.
Google Real Estate – Should Agents Bank On It?
The news just over a week ago that Google was “entering” the UK/European market has sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. Seloger dropped by 9% while Rightmove has plummeted a whopping 17%. Seloger has since recovered to its pre-news price while Rightmove continues to be significantly down.
So let’s look at what happened, will the property portal landscape change and is this impact on the share prices is justified.
An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.
Google’s Latest Releases Part 3: New Maps Perspective
With so many new releases from Google over the past week, you could be forgiven for feeling a little over-saturated. As we’ve already discussed, Google’s new real-time search and personalised results raise some questions in terms of online advertising for agents. Thankfully, Google’s latest release looks positive for the world of online real estate advertising.
fizber.com, realtybid.com Offer Deals
US property search engine fizber.com is offering free registration to real estate agents and brokers who sign up before the end of December.
US online auctions website realtybid.com also has a Christmas offer for agents, discounting its US$150 listing fee to $25 until 31 December.
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