Boom Time For Portals?

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.

1. TDPG Challenges zoopla.co.uk

   It was only a matter of time until The Digital Property Group (TDPG) challenged zoopla.co.uk's claim to the title of second most popular property portal in the UK. December 2009 figures from comScore released by TDPG today show that while rightmove.co.uk maintains a comfortable lead with 2,622,000 unique visitors for the month - an increase of 36.6 percent since December 2008 - the second most popular property website is TDPG's findaproperty.com with 1,327,000, up 33 percent year-on-year....

2. DPG Backs ABCe Audits for UK Portals

   With UK portals both within and outside of the "big 4" intent on proving their growth and strength by claiming the coveted title of "fastest growing" perhaps ABCe or a similar independent audit could halt - or at least settle - the arguments? ...

3. zoopla.co.uk Challenges DPG Growth

   zoopla.co.uk is reporting comScore data, collected before the UK portal’s integration with propertyfinder.com, hotproperty.co.uk and thinkproperty.com, that puts its unique visitor numbers up nearly 13.87 percent in October compared to September. zoopla.co.uk’s statement quotes comScore figures that show a 0.57 percent drop in market leader rightmove.co.uk’s unique visitor numbers from September to October, an 11.33 percent drop for Digital Property Group’s findaproperty.com, a 1.09 percent drop at DPG-owned primelocation.com, and a 5.34 percent drop in unique visitors for propertyfinder.com....

4. Zoopla Ltd Integrates its Websites

   UK property portal and information website zoopla.co.uk will soon be integrated with propertyfinder.com....

5. zoopla.co.uk Grows 25% in July

   A statement from UK property portal and property information website, zoopla.co.uk, reveals that their audience growth figures for July were 25 percent higher than June. ...