hemnet.se CEO Resigns

Björn Dietmann, CEO of Sweden’s most visited property portal, hemnet.se, has announced his resignation.

Dietmann has spent four years as CEO of the portal. His resignation follows that of hemnet.se’s chairman, Lars Kilander, and the appointment of Per Johnler in late 2008.

A statement from the company reveals that Dietmann will leave his post in mid-February and be replaced in the short term by Carl-Henrik Borg, senior partner at iProspect AB, until a new CEO is recruited.

The company also revealed the appointment of a new sales manager, Andreas Löwgren.

hemnet.se is owned and operated by real estate brokerages in cooperation with the Daily News and Göteborgsposten. It celebrates its 11th birthday in 2009 and is the most visited Swedish portal, with 1 million visits a month, despite increasing competition from booli.se, bospindeln.se and Danish newcomer boliga.se.

One of the portal’s latest innovations is a collaboration with Eurocity Software AB which delivers SAAS Translator. The SAAS Translator translates the hemnet.se website into English, German, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, French and Finnish and contains a dictionary tailored to Hemnet’s property terminology.

property-report.com Introduces New Features

Asian property portal property-report.com has been working hard to improve its look, feel and functionality. With the portal claiming an increase in web traffic over the new year, these changes already seem to have paid off.

The English language portal covers Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and China, and aims itself at wealthy buyers.

In mid-2008 property-report.com was redesigned, allowing easier access to the large archives of country-related news and content.

“The top navigation bar allows users to go to their area of interest with just one click. And using Google Analytics, we can see which country sections are most popular. This will allow us to offer more user-specific advertising, which is an innovation we are working on now and will be launched very soon,” said Duncan Worthington, Managing Director of Ensign Media Co. Ltd, owners of the web site.

In December 2008 a new, cleaner property listing module was launched.

“We commissioned a customised property listing module for the site. It is designed to be simple to use and provides the required information a buyer needs. Using ´shopping basket´ technology, the user can add a selection of properties to their basket to view later, or then ´cash out´ and inquiries will automatically be sent to each respective vendor accordingly,” commented Worthington.

Following a month of testing, in January 2009 the company launched their Automated Agent Programme, a fully integrated software solution to automatically add all of an agent’s property listings to property-report.com and update any changes in real time.

Properties from New Zealand have recently been added and the company says an agent in Australia will soon go live with over 3,000 properties.

“Despite the global economic downturn, property-report.com traffic has remained consistent, with December and January showing an increase in the number of unique visitors, and an increase in the time each visitor spends on the site. property-report.com is 100% about property. Site visitors are therefore interested in property and ´pre-qualified´, and we can see more and more people are using the property search to find their second home, retirement home or investment property in Asia. This bodes well for the future of Asian real estate,” said Worthington.

The portal’s owners, Ensign Media, are based in Bangkok, and also produce the print news magazines. Property Report Thailand circulates with 20,000 copies monthly while Property Report Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia circulate around 10,000 copies monthly.

idealista.it Launches SMS Alerts

Italian property website idealista.it has launched free SMS alerts for those searching for a rental property.

As the company says in a statement about the launch: it might be a rental emergency, but sms could save us.

From now on, all users searching for rental properties on idealista.it can take advantage of this way to keep up-to-date with the latest news on available properties.

Users simply register their details and preferences at idealista.it in order to obtain alerts that contain information on the main features, prices and contacts for new properties for rent. Each user can receive up to 10 sms per day

It’s one way to keep ahead in the highly competitive rental game. It also gives the listings more exposure, and agents a faster turnaround on any potential leads.

Paolo Zanetti, idealista.it’s managing director, says: “anyone who is searching for a rental house knows it’s really important to get before everybody else. Immediacy often makes a difference. With these free and immediate alerts we want to help both those who are searching for rental house and house owners.”

Spanish owned idealista.it launched in Italy two years ago.

Danes take on Norway with boliga.no

Danish property search engine boliga.dk has launched in Norway. boliga.no joins boliga.se, which was launched in Sweden in 2008.

According to a press release from the company this makes the trio of Boliga websites Scandinavia’s largest property search engine.

boliga.dk launched in 2007, and now accounts for 34% of all referrals to agencies in Denmark, receiving around 4 million hits a month.

The company is still small, with just 8 employees. The company’s founder, Ricco Zuschlag, has big plans for the website, saying he sees no need to stop at Norway, but for now is content to focus on Scandinavia and consolidate their position to become as important in Norway and Sweden as they are in Denmark.

The company recently won the “Best Internet Strategy Award” from SIME (Scandinavian Interactive Media Event).

INEA Link to home.co.uk and Develop RemoteAgent

A statement released by the UK’s Independent Network of Estate Agents (INEA) reveals that they have partnered with home.co.uk to provide a live feed of their agent listings to the UK portal.

As a result, the INEA say their listings will soon be found on nestoria.co.uk, Channel 4, Estate Angels, The Independent, AOL, The Telegraph, Globrix and Mouseprice.

“We are pleased to announce that a live feed has been created from INEA to home.co.uk” the INEA statement says.

“We strongly feel that the future of property portals and to the benefit of agents is portals and systems working together.”

home.co.uk seems to be a portal that is going places, with a revamp for 2009 already resulting in an increase in traffic to the portal.

And the INEA have also been very busy of late.

Trevor Mealham of the INEA took its RemoteAgent concept to Inman Connect in the New York earlier this month.

RemoteAgent is a media product that allows agents to “expand their brand” by taking their properties and services and their fellow agents’ mls listings to remote locations. An empty shop window, a shopping mall, café, or waiting room, anywhere really, with a portable video screen acting like a shop front window.

The INEA call it the “ultimate agents window”. It allows agents to take their listings to the people – rather than waiting for the people to come to them. The INEA hope it bridges the gap between shopfronts and the web.

As well as generating leads and potential revenue from third party advertisements, it also has scope for partnerships with other local businesses. Viewers can receive text messaged property lists and full details from RemoteAgent in around 30 seconds, delivered straight to their mobile.

INEA mls will be launching RemoteAgent in the UK early 2009. In the meantime, you can watch a video about Remote Agent here.

everymove.com and Network Communications Alliance

Network Communications, Inc. (NCI), the largest publisher of printed and online real estate information in North America, has announced an agreement with everymove.com to feed its residential resale, new construction and apartment rental listings to the ‘one-stop shop’ real estate portal.

The company says that this alliance provides more rich Web content for home buyers as well as extending the online exposure for advertisers of eight NCI titles – Apartment Finder, The Real Estate Book, Unique Homes, New Home Finder, New Homes & Ideas, New Home Journal, Mature Living Choices and Senior Living Choices – to reach the 46 million+ Americans who move annually.

“At NCI, we are committed to providing our customers with the highest level of exposure and value for their marketing dollars,” said Scott Dixon, NCI’s president of the real estate division. “Our relationship with everymove.com serves to further ensure that this commitment is met and demonstrates how we continue to expand the breadth of our ever-growing network of online distribution partners by joining forces with the top sites visited by new home seekers.”

NCI’s magazines are read by over 12 million readers in over 500 markets and deliver more than one million leads to advertisers each month. Online magazine content can be accessed at livingchoices.com.

everymove.com offers property listings, real estate advice and service provider information with innovative Web 2.0 and 3.0 capabilities.

everymove.com is the latest website to join NCI’s network of online distribution partners which delivers more than 50 million unique visitors monthly. Partner sites include bobvila.com, condo.com, frontdoor.com, Google Base, Home Gain, House Locator, Home Pages, homescape.com, Live Deal, MSN Sympatico, NYTimes/Real Estate, oodle.com, realtytrac.com, retirementhomes.com, trulia.com, Wall Street Journal, yahoo.com and zillow.com.

The company says the NCI everymove.com alliance will help advertisers of NCI brands maximize their online exposure and generate quality leads.

globrix.com Powers ukvillages.co.uk

globrix.com has announced the launch of its property search facility on ukvillages.co.uk. This will further enhance the fast-growing, free-to-list property search engine’s reputation and exposure.

ukvillages.co.uk provides a fully interactive home page and tailored portal for over 31,765 villages, towns, cities and suburbs in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Launched in April 2000, it offers local people a means of sharing information and promoting their community and its businesses, activities and services to a wider audience, including tourists and visitors.

Ian Parry, globrix.com’s CTO said of the new partnership: “ukvillages.co.uk offers local people a means of sharing information and promoting their area to a wider audience. It makes sense that the site should include a property search facility and we’re very pleased to be able to provide this functionality”.

Jason Mawer, CEO of ukvillages.co.uk said “property has always proved a popular area and I’ve no doubt that the new functionality will result in increased traffic for ukvillages.co.uk, globrix.com and estate agents”.

It’s another big step forward for globrix.com, as it celebrates its first birthday this month. The company already claims to have the largest index of properties for sale and rent in the UK.

In its first year globrix.com was named ‘Estate Agency Service Firm of the Year’ by Negotiator magazine, as well as being crowned ‘Best Property Portal UK’ at the Daily Mail UK Property Awards. The property search engine is backed by News International and powers property search for the Times Online.

What is The Future of Real Estate Search?

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How do you imagine the future of real estate search? It’s a big question, but one that needs answering!

And Onboard Informatics wants to know. They have taken some steps towards answering it themselves with their new Lifestyle Listings Engine, which we reported on earlier this month.

As they write: “we know that this is just the first step on a journey to change the way consumers find a home.”

“One of the things we’re very interested in is what Lifestyle Search means, and what it enables for the industry. We want to know your thoughts and your vision for what Lifestyle Search is.”

With this in mind they’ve announced the Lifestyle Search Essay Contest. The topic is deceptively simple: “Imagine the real estate search of the future and tell us about it.”

Anyone can enter, there’s no set length and all you need to do is email the link to your blog or website, or an essay (in Word or .txt format) to mmurphy@onboardinformatics.com.

Entries will be posted on their blog, and a panel of judges will select the best for a shortlist, which the public can vote on from 9 February until 16 February.

The winning essay will receive a prize of $500 American Express giftcard from Onboard.

It will be interesting to watch the visions and the debate unfold.

Find out more at the Onboard Informatics blog.

home.co.uk’s New Look Increases Popularity

Last week propertyportalwatch.com reported that UK property search engine home.co.uk had begun 2009 with a new look website.

“Technology improvements have been our primary focus over the last 12 years and this fresh new look is really ‘the icing on the cake’,” commented Doug Shephard, of home.co.uk.

home.co.uk have also told propertyportalwatch.com that their new look has been met with excitement by their users.

The company says ”soaring traffic levels over the first few weeks of January suggest it’s proving very popular. The number of buyers the website attracts, in particular, has risen far above previous levels, despite the property slump.”

Interestingly, both rightmove.co.uk and globrix.com have also reported rising leads or traffic in January.

Single Property Websites on the Rise

Many real estate agents are turning to single property websites in an attempt to give them the edge over competitors and make their properties stand out. And single property websites are definitely increasing in use and popularity according to figures released last week by one leading supplier.

AgencyLogic, a division of Network Earth, Inc., founded in 1995, is the largest real estate industry provider of single property Websites in North America.

Last week the company announced record growth of their PowerSite single property Website product for the fifth straight year. The company says that despite a particularly difficult year for real estate in general, the number of new clients, Website license sales and gross revenue in 2008 all reached new highs.

The first and second quarters of 2008 saw their results soar with more than 37% growth in gross revenue and a 58% growth in license sales versus the same period in 2007. However, the company says the most significant growth was seen through their Affiliate and Private Label vendor network. The programs collectively generated an annual increase of 80% in revenues and more than 88% in licenses sales versus vendor generated business in 2007.

“Given current market conditions we are obviously happy with the results but we’re especially pleased to see the growth via our vendor network as it again underscores that our decision to move away from direct sales was the right one,” said Stephen Fells, CEO of AgencyLogic. “We expect 2009 to continue in the same direction as we announce additional partnerships, release new but related products and continue to add to the base PowerSite feature set.”

“We have seen a sizeable market swing by Realtors away from traditional print and television outlets towards online advertising,” said Mark Wayman, CIO of AgencyLogic. “This has been led most recently by Century 21’s decision to move all of their 2009 television advertising budget to online sources. We expect to benefit from this paradigm shift by positioning single property Websites at the heart of marketing homes.”

AgencyLogic attribute some of the growth to a new office opening in California and an increase in development staff. The company’s software development process was reviewed, resulting in the creation of a shorter and more frequent release schedule. And from this year, the company expects to release new value based features bi-monthly, with several new products yet to be released, including some related to niche real estate markets and tying into social networking.

Whichever way you look at it, single property websites are increasing in popularity among agents, and certainly one more online marketing avenue that agents now have at their disposal.

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