propertyportalwatch.com’s desk is awash with news of record web traffic for August 2009, so does this signify boom time is here for property portals?
The REA Group’s flagship Australian portal, realestate.com.au, told us they have broken all previous records by hitting 5 million unique browsers.
The company says it coincides with new August figures for Australia which indicate a 19 per cent increase in active sales listings in the residential sector, month-on-month.
Peter Wright, General Manager, Residential, for realestate.com.au said the milestone 5 million mark and increase in property listings is a positive sign and a win-win situation for the business and the real estate sector:
“With the spring selling season underway we have definitely seen the level of engagement increase across the board through contact with real estate agents.”
“Based on feedback from speaking to real estate agents, a combination of low interest rates and rising consumer confidence has led to a surge in home owners keen to put their property on the market – there’s never been a better time to sell.”
“Heightened activity is further backed up by record auction clearance rates in recent weeks. If you look at the rpdata.com clearance rates on our website, you can see the signs are promising for the industry.”
In the UK the story is similar, with zoopla.co.uk releasing internal audience growth figures showing that it exceeded 1 million unique monthly users in August for the first time in its history. A total of 1.04 million unique users were recorded in August representing a month-on-month increase of 18 percent on July’s figures.
The company says total visits to zoopla.co.uk in August were up 21 percent compared to July at 1.58 million and page views were up 26 percent standing at 12.4 million. zoopla.co.uk also says it recorded an increase in leads generated to agents in August of 51 percent over July.
Alex Chesterman, CEO of zoopla.co.uk, said:
“We’ve had a very strong couple of months over the summer and are optimistic that the trend will continue as we move into the traditionally busier period for the market. When we combine the organic growth of zoopla.co.uk with the traffic and leads generated by the websites we have recently acquired, we believe that we are in the process of creating a very exciting proposition for agents to extend their reach and experience more value for their marketing spend as we continue to challenge some of the more established players.”
And zoopla.co.uk are not alone. The Digital Property Group says it also set a new record for unique visitors with over 4.6 million of them in August 2009 – this is one visitor every 0.57 seconds and culminates in an enquiry every 2.16 seconds. One of its four portals, findaproperty.com saw over 3.1 million unique visitors, a massive 34.2 percent year-on-year increase, and a record since analysis began in 2005.
Its sister website, findanewhome.com, also set a new record of over 369,000 unique visitors, 57.8 percent higher than the year previous whilst primelocation.com saw 20.9% annual growth.
Mark Milner, CEO of The Digital Property Group said:
“For The Digital Property Group, primelocation.com and findaproperty.com to have registered year-on-year increases of 25.4 percent, 20.9 percent and 34.2 percent respectively completely bucks the long-established seasonal trends.”
The Group says that this record traffic is converting into firm enquiries, with home buyer and renter leads across The Digital Property Group sites increasing by 39.6 percent year-on-year.
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