Property Portal Watch » Strategy & Ops

Last Chance for Property Portal Watch Workshop

Simon Baker — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:27:47 +0000

The Property Portal Watch Workshop is on next Tuesday in New York. This event brings together the owners and operators of market leading property portals to discuss the key issues facing their businesses.

Over 80 people from market leading property portals around the world have already registered. There are attendees from Immoscout 24, Seloger, Trulia, Fotocasa, Idealista, Globaliza, Funda, Marketleader, Propertyfinder.ae, Immowelt, Immoweb, Immonet, Mysecondhome and many more.

The agenda has been pulled together based on what the attendees feel are the most important issues for thier businesses. These topics include:

Review of 2009 and Potential Trends for 2010
Google, Aggregators, Vertical Search Sites, Scrapers and Free Sites – What to do?
Different Business Models – The Challenge of Differentiation
Extracting More Value from Customers
Consolidation and Expansion – Have You Earned the Right to Grow?
Quality Sites – Focus on Lead Generation

Click here for the full agenda.

Its not too late to sign up. Just send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com and we will add you to the list.

For more information, click here.

Join the Leaders at the Property Portal Watch Workshop

Simon Baker — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:18:59 +0000

The free Property Portal Watch Workshop in New York is only 1 month away. This workshop brings together property portal leaders from around the world to discuss the key issues facing their businesses and the industry in general. Of course, Google is bound to be a hot topic of discussion.

Already we have had over 70 registrations for this event, making it the biggest Property Portal Watch Workshop yet held. We are fortunate to have Senior Management attending from market leading portals around the world including:

Immobilienscout24 and Immonet in Germany
Funda.nl in the Netherlands
Seloger in France
Propertyfinder.ae in Dubai
Fotocasa, Idealista, and Globaliza in Spain
Immoweb in Belgium
Vivareal in Brazil
Myhome.ie in Ireland
Redfin and Marketleader in the US
and many more …

If you would like to attend this FREE event on the 12th January in New York, just send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com

The Property Portal Watch Workshop is aligned with the Inman News’ Real Estate Connect Conference. This is the “must attend” conference for property portal operators around the world. The conference brands itself as where technology and real estate meet and after attending 12 of these events over the years, they have certainly delivered on that promise.

Property Portal Watch has also negotiated discount tickets to the Real Estate Connect conference. All you have to do is follow this link and use the promo code PPW. It is that simple.

Register for Property Portal Watch Workshop and Enter Draw for Free Inman Tickets

Simon Baker — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:59:50 +0000

There are only 2 days left to enter the draw for one of 15 free tickets to the Inman News’ Real Estate Connect conference in New York from the 13th – 15th January 2010. To be in the draw for these free tickets, all you have to do is register to attend the Property Portal Watch Workshop on Tuesday 12th January – the day before Real Estate Connect.

There are already over 50 registrants to this workshop including participants from market leading companies such as Immoscout24 (#1 in Germany), Fotocasa and Idealisa (#1 and #2 in Spain), Seloger (#1 in France), Funda (#1 in Holland), Propertyfinder.ae (#1 in UAE) and Immoweb.be (#1 in Belgium). We also have companies attending from Australia, Brazil, the US, India, and UAE.

At the workshop we will look at the key issues facing property portals around the world.

To register just send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com. Entries for the free draw close at 5pm (in New York) on the 19th November.

Join the Leaders at the Property Portal Watch Workshop

Simon Baker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:26:30 +0000

What do immoscout24.de, seloger.fr and funda.nl have in common?

They are all market leaders and all have Senior Managers attending the free Property Portal Watch workshop on the 12th January in New York. These are just some of the 24 portals from 10 countries that have already registered for the workshop.

The Property Portal Watch Workshop brings together the Senior Managers from property portals around the world to spend a full day discussing the key issues facing their businesses. This is an open discussion with no issue too tough for the team to tackle.

If you register your interest for the free Property Portal Watch Workshop by Thursday this week (19th November), you will go into the draw to win one of 15 free passes to the Real Estate Connect Conference held from the 13th – 15th January at the same location as the Property Portal Watch Workshop. To register your interest in the workshop, just send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com.

If you miss out on one of the free tickets, we have negotiated a discount rate from the folks at Inman News for their Real Estate Connect conference. Click here for more information on the Real Estate Connect Conference.

Property Portal Watch Workshop is On Again in NYC

Simon Baker — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:33:20 +0000

The highly successful Property Portal Watch Workshop is on again. We have teamed with the folks at Inman News to hold our third workshop on the 12th January 2010, just prior to the Real Estate Connect conference in New York, at the Marriott Marquis Times Square.

The Property Portal Watch Workshop brings together the Senior Management from property protals around the world to spend a day working through the key issues their businesses are facing. We will cover topics that are important to both small and large propery portals including growth strategies, ways to increase revenues, go to market approaches, and Google (an ever popular topic).

Over the last two workshops we have had over 100 people attend from 18 different countries representing over 40 property portals. Companies the have attended include immoscout24.de, funda.nl, seloger.fr, trulia.com, move.com and realestate.com.au. Already we have registrations from some market leading portals.

As one attendee said “The Property Portal Watch Workshop was the best part of the Inman Connect conference“.

If you register for the workshop before the 19th November, you will automatically enter the draw to win one of 15 free tickets to the Inman News’ Real Estate Connect conference which is held from the 13 – 15th, also at the Marriott Marquis Times Square. These tickets have a face value of US$939 each. To register, please send an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com.

If you are unsuccessful in securing one of the free tickets, you are still able to purchase a ticket for Real Estate Connect at a discount price. Property Portal Watch has negotiated a special rate for our readers. Sign up before 21st November and pay the special rate of US$598 for the conference only – a further discount of US$100 off the Inman Non Member discount rate. If you sign up after the 21st November, you will pay the special rate of US$759 for the conference only – also a discount of US$100. For information on how to get this rate, please click here. Dont forget to use the promotion code PWP.

For more information on the Property Portal Watch Workshop, please click here.

It’s All About the Leads

Simon Baker — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:02:06 +0000

Property portals around the world are famous for talking up their numbers. Almost every week we receive press releases claiming one of two things – a portal is bigger or faster than everyone else in their market. The bigger claim is almost always followed by a Unique Browser, page view or visitor number while the faster claim is followed by some percentage growth between two arbitrary dates. This approach is reminiscent of newspapers touting circulation and readership.

While these are interesting, they are not that relevant outside of the industry and probably not that relevant to the people that matter most, the advertiser. They are measuring the inputs and not the outputs. What portals should be talking about is the number of leads they generate for the advertiser. This is the true measure of effectiveness. The problem is most portal sites just don’t know how many leads they really generate.

All portals can measure the email leads that they generate. That is easy. However the problem is portals also advertise telephone numbers and open house times and when it comes to measurement, these are far more problematic.

Here are some approaches people are taking to measure telephone traffic.

Redirecting Telephone Numbers

In the UK, it is popular for property portals to not list the agent’s real telephone number but to list a number the redirects to the agent’s real number. This allows the portal to count how many telephone leads they have sent. The approach also allows a marketing message to be played to the person making the call (e.g. “ABC portal is now redirecting you to a market leading agent”) and when the agent picks up the phone, a marketing message can also be played (e.g. “Here is another lead from ABC portal”).

This works well in the UK where this service is very inexpensive however in most other markets, the cost of implementing this approach is way too high.

Telephone Number Links

Some portals are replacing the agent’s telephone number on a property details page with a link to the telephone number. When someone clicks on the link, the telephone number is revealed. This way, the portal can count how many times someone clicks on the link to gain some idea of how many phone calls are being made.

This has recently been implemented by realestate.com.au and domain.com.au in the Australian market. Domain’s implementation is slightly flawed as you only click on the link to see additional numbers. I am sure this will change shortly.

Contact Agent Tab

Some sites split the property details page into multiple pages and have a tab system that allows the consumer to tab between the property details, the photos, a map and a contact the agent page. This allows the site to track how many time the “contact the agent” page is displayed and therefore gives the site some indication as to how many leads are being generated.

In some markets, open house or open for inspection times are very important. In this case, a consumer can see a property listing on the site and then just turn up to the property at a prearranged time. In this case, the portal has no way of knowing how many people they directed to the open house. This becomes more problematic as portals provide more and more tools for the consumers that allow them to plan their day looking at open homes.

As the property portal industry matures, the market leaders will need to find better ways of communicating their effectiveness to the market. The days of talking about unique visitors and page impressions are probably numbered and the more progressive sites will talk about the leads they generate. We just now need to find a reliable and independent measurer of leads.

Top 10 Cool New Online Applications

Simon Baker — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:26:31 +0000

I am here at the Inman Connect conference in San Francisco. 1,500 people from around the world have descended on San Francisco to learn the latest in online technology and how it applies to real estate.

One of the first presentations was from Brian Boreo who told the 1,500 strong crowd about his top 10 cool new online tools to help any business.

Here they are …

issuu.com … quick online magazine development … and its free.

viralheat.com … monitor your brand 24/7 and join into the conversation about what people are saying about you

drop.io … create a space online (a webpage) in a couple of clicks for every listings or a presentation and its free for most purposes

jimdo.com … create a full featured website with lots of social media tools … in a few clicks

feedmingle.com … allows you to take RSS feeds from blogs and websites to create one simple feed

mailchimp.com … a simple to use and powerful online emailing tool

screentoaster.com … a simple application to record what is happening on your screen and then you can share it with others

geochirp.com … allows you to find out who is talking about a certain topic on twitter around where you are located

tumblr.com … allows you to create a blog and to post articles to it through a range of media including online, mobile phone and so on

usertesting.com … allows you to test webpages on line in real time

99designs.com … allows you to post a design project online and to have a group of designers submit proposals and you select the winner

joby.com/gorillamobile … a tripod for your iphone

Google Real Estate – Hot Topic at Property Portal Watch Workshop

Simon Baker — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:51:19 +0000

The recent launch of Google Real Estate in Australia, the US and New Zealand has led to hot discussion amongst commentators, property portals and the industry. Questions are being raised on what the real impact will be for property portals around the world. As it looks like Google Real Estate will soon launch in UK and Germany, the discussion will just get hotter.

The question on whether Google is a threat or perhaps an opportunity to leverage will be a hot topic of discussion at the Property Portal Workshop on August 4, in San Francisco

It is a rare opportunity to be able to discuss this and other vital issues facing property portals with more than 50 portal operators from all over the world already registered – don’t miss out on being part of it!

A quote from one attendee at the NYC workshop

The workshop was very important, giving me the opportunity to meet with other world portal owners. .. there was a good open forum to discuss and opionionate things openly. I think all portal owners took things away with them which can only be healthy for the real estate industry. Trevor Mealham INEA (The Independent Network of Estate Agents), UK

The Workshop is FREE to Inman Connect attendees and if you haven’t registered we have secured a fantastic rate of US$249 (normally US$900)

If you are interested in attending this important workshop for Property Portal Operators or have any queries, email info@propertyportalwatch.com and we will provide you with details on how to take advantage of this special rate.

For more information on the Property Portal Workshop go to Property Portal Watch SFO Workshop. 4^th August

For more information on Inman Conference go to Inman Connect SFO 5^th – 7^th August

We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco

Google – Friend or Foe?

Simon Baker — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:01:04 +0000

Whether we like it or not, Google is a powerful force on the internet and for most businesses, they are a key driver of traffic. Many portal sites around the world receive more than 30% of their traffic from searches done on Google. Therefore, it is not surprising that property portals around the world are asking the same question – is Google a real threat to my business? What these property portals fear most is that Google will openly compete with them in providing listing advertising for agents – thus making the portals almost irrelevant.

We see this concern in the survey results we have on Property Portal Watch in which 50% of respondents believe that Google can replace property portals or will strongly compete with them.

Therefore is Google really a threat for property portals or will it continue to be a friend and drive traffic?

Today if I type a search into Google along the lines of “homes for sale in Richmond”, I am most likely to get a mixture of portals sites, franchise sites and local agent sites all offering homes for sale in the Richmond area. Now in the US, if I do that search, the first search result I receive is “Find 1,874 results for homes for sale in Richmond”.

Clicking on this takes you to what appears to be a mash-up of Google maps and Google Base. Strangely, I now see there are 7,980 results – I guess the integration is still work in progress. I can then zoom in and out, narrow the search results, and see the property details. If I am interested in a property, I am able to go click on a link and go to the original listing.

Google seems to be remorselessly going down a path of improving the quality of its search results. In short, they want to get better and better at giving the user the results that they are asking for, not just point them in the right direction. This is not going to change, just get better and better.

While portals may be fearful of these changes, it is unlikely Google is going to compete with them for the following reasons.

Firstly, Google is not going to go direct to agents. As those that run property portal sites around the world know, agents don’t often self serve. More often than not, portal sites use sales teams to get agents to sign up either for base subscriptions or for premium products. In addition, a simple review of Google search results shows that it is rare for agents to undertake SEM (search engine marketing) strategies. In addition, a review of a number of agent websites shows they are not optimised for SEO – still one of the black arts for many agents.

Therefore, unless Google is going to put a massive team of people on the ground to sell or promote its products to agents, it is unlikely that agents will enthusiastically embrace Google en masse.

Secondly, even if Google did go direct or agents did self-serve, how would they make money from this? Now they have an entrenched model in which Adwords generate revenue around the natural search results. In the property segment, the major purchasers of these are the portal sites. Therefore biting the hand that feeds you is not always the smartest thing to do.
Google could create a set of premium products where listings are placed at the top of the search if agents pay more. However, this may go against the Google mantra of providing the results that the consumer asks for. Therefore it is unlikely that this is going to happen.

Finally, Google has the challenge of how to handle the duplication of listings. Let’s say that four portals sites as well as a franchise group and an agent all have the same listing on Google – how will Google handle the display of that listing. Perhaps the approach they will take will be similar to how they handle the order in which they display sites in the natural search results. They will look for sources that they believe are the most credible and this is credibility may be established by the volume and quality of links to the source site as well as other factors including the length of existence and the quality of other listings on the site. Any which way you look at it, it is likely that the portal sites will have a better chance of getting their listings to the top.

Therefore, given this is happening and the quality of search results will continue to be improved, the challenge for portals sites is to make sure that it is the listings on their sites that are displayed in the results before those of the agents who have entered them directly. To do this, portal sites have to openly embrace Google and where possible make it easy for Google to a hold of the listings. By doing this, portals site will dampen any impact that the changes at Google will have on their business.

The reality is that there may be some reduction in the volume of traffic from Google as some agents and franchise groups / companies get their listings into the Google search results ahead of the portal sites. It is just another iteration of the ongoing SEO chase. Those that embrace and run with Google will get the results. Those that ignore SEO or hide with their head in the sand will miss out.

Join the discussion on whether Google is really a threat over on our discussion forums.

Property Portal Watch Workshop is on Again!

Simon Baker — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:31:16 +0000

Once again Property Portal Watch has teamed with the folks at Inman to bring you the second Property Portal Watch Workshop. This day long free session will be held on the 4th August in San Francisco – the day before the Inman Conference. This free workshop brings together the management teams of property portals from around the world to talk about the hottest issues facing property portals today.

The first edition of the workshop was successfully held in New York in January this year. That session brought together 50 people from 13 countries representing 33 different portals. As one attendee said “the property portal workshop last monday was by far the best part of the [Inman] conference.”

Once again we have a limited number free tickets to the Inman Connect conference for those attending the Property Portal Watch Workshop.

At the last workshop, we looked at a range of issues facing portal sites around the world. In depth discussion was had on such issues as:

Will Google really have an impact on property portals and what should property portals do?
Is the freemium model a risk to established pay to list portals?
What other models are out there and what impact will they have on property portals?
What are the premium products that property portals should be launching and when should they launch them?
What is the best go to market approach for selling advertising to agents?
Should portals expand their businesses beyond the traditional listings business?

And so on …

The discussion was very robust and everyone shared the ups and downs of their experiences.

Given the success of this session and the strong survey feedback, we have decided to hold it again in San Francisco on the 4th August, the day before the Inman Conference kicks off. Click here for more information on the work shop.

We are working on the agenda at the moment however it will still be a very interactive, workshop strucuture.

Not only is Property Portal Watch Workshop free, but we have organised 25 free passes to the Real Estate Connect Conference itself – a value of nearly $900 each. They way we plan to distribute these is via a lottery. Therefore, everyone who has registered as wanting to attend the Workshop by the 14th June, will go into the draw to win one of the 25 free passes to the Real Estate Connect Conference. Everyone who is not successful in the lottery, will be able to purchase a pass to the conference for the heavily discounted rate of US$299.

Make sure you register your interest today by sending an email to editor@propertyportalwatch.com.