propertyfinder.com Takes on primelocation.com with Premium Property Site
October 17, 2008 by Emma Sorensen
The stock market might be taking everyone for a roller coaster ride, but propertyfinder.com are clearly remaining optimistic, with the launch of a “premium” portal designed to hit the top end of the property market: propertyfinder.com/premium.
The new section of the propertyfinder.com portal snuck onto the net with little fanfare from propertyfinder.com, except a discreet banner ad link from their existing homepage.
“Forget the Joneses. Keep up with the Windsors” is the slogan they’re using to capture the select top end of the sales and rental market. The site debuted with over 30,000 premium properties from 2,500 agents across the UK.
The question is whether propertyfinder.com/premium will prove to be a genuine competitor for primelocation.com – the long established site serving the premium end of the market. primelocation.com claim to have over 2 million visitors per month use their portal to view 230,000 “prime” properties to buy, and 60,000 “prime” properties to lease, from 4,000 agents. (Source: www.primelocation.com/about-us/)
With propertyfinder.com/premium advertising properties from many of the same agents who currently use primelocation – such as Savills, Knight Frank and Hamptons – it remains to be seen if primelocation.com will lose any market share to the newcomer.
- Luxury Property Portals on the Increase?
In these challenging economic times you’d think property portals would be focussing on the cheap and cheerful, but the luxury end of the market still seems to be expanding. ...
- propertyfinder.com Launches Mobile Version Site
propertyfinder.com, one of the "big 4" property portals in the UK market, has just launced an iPhone version of its site. The new mobile version allows users to quickly and easily search through all the listings in the propertyfinder.com database from their phone. The new site can be found at m.propertyfinder.com. The site seems to have been optimised to work on the iPhone. Like the trulia.com iPhone application launched earlier this year, it is well designed, easy to used, has smooth graphics and appears relatively fast. propertyfinder.com appears to be one of the first portal sites in the UK to launch an iPhone optimised application for the UK market. The question is, while mobile applications are sexy, are they likely to be used in an serious volume by people looking for property in the UK? ...
- Zoopla Confirmed as Potential Propertyfinder Buyer
Last week it was revealed that the Propertyfinder's management buy out attempt had failed and that the REA Group and News International had entered into a heads of agreement with a mystery party. This mystery party has now been confirmed as being Zoopla. Zoopla is a relatively new entrant to the UK online real estate market having initially launched a site around home prices and more recently moving into advertising homes for sale in the UK using the pay per lead model. Earlier this year Zoopla closed out a £3.75m capital raising. Check out our coverage of Zoopla over the last year. On reflection, this deal makes sense by providing Zoopla with a boost into being a serious competitor in the market and it gives propertyfinder.com and its team a new lease on life....
- rightmove.co.uk Trial £95 Premium Listing
A press release from rightmove.co.uk says the UK market leader will be launching a Beta version of its website on 8 June 2009. The Beta site is to trial sellers’ and agents’ response to a publicised suggested retail price of £95 for upgrading their property to its Premium Listing advert for a month....
- Is Propertyfinder Worth Saving?
It’s been a hectic week for the team at Propertyfinder with the REA Group and News International announcing a full review and the possible closure of the business, and the management team at Propertyfinder putting together a MBO. A cursory review of the REA Group accounts reveals that there is significant red-ink next to the Propertyfinder business. However, deeper analysis reveals that the Propertyfinder business has strong traffic, solid revenues, a strong reputation and a good management team in place. Therefore the question that arises is “Is Propertyfinder actually worth saving?” In this, our third article in the Propertyfinder series, we look at Propertyfinder and its performance in the UK market....
Loading ...
It just seems to be a landing page, when you hit search you change back to the standard branding.
They have spent the money on the branding, why not make it consistent?
Stuggling to understand why PF would be copying a model that clearly Prime Location are not being particularly successful at.
8 years ago – there was a genuine market opportunity to segment the market at this level
Rightmove have proven that as long as the search works okay – clients don’t want confusing additional areas
Feels like a marketing message more than a consumer value add