Google Real Estate in Europe – What is All the Fuss About? Lessons from Australia

The news yesterday that Google was “entering” the UK/European market sent the share prices of Rightmove and Seloger into a tailspin. The Seloger share price closed down 5.7% at €23.50 while the Rightmove share price was hammered a whopping 10.3% to 499.9p.

So let’s look at what happened. An article by the Financial Times (Dec 2 titled “Google set to enter UK property market”) seems to have set the cat amongst the pigeons. The article stated that Google is in talks with British estate agents and that “experts” say that an entry by them to the market could pose a serious threat to existing property websites. The article didn’t talk about what Google was going to do and Google didn’t comment. So there is really not much to go on. So the only guide we really have as to what Google may do in the UK and Europe is what they have done in Australia.
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The Challenges for Google Real Estate

The launch of Google Real Estate search on Google Maps in Australia, the US and New Zealand has shaken the property portal world. It is expected that Google Real Estate will make an appearance in the UK and German markets shortly.

Last week we published our initial thoughts on what the launch of Google Real Estate will mean for the existing portal sites in Australia. These thoughts are equally applicable for portal sites around the world.

Having followed the debate about Google Real Estate and its potential impact on portal sites, we thought it would be good to outline what we believe has to fall into place for Google to truly impact the property portal market leaders around the world.
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Have You Got An Opinion?

Have you got an opinion about something going on in the world of property portals? We’re sure you do, and we’d love to hear it.

Not only that, but we’d like to publish it.
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Will the Economic Crisis Affect Portals?

In our most recent reader poll we asked: How much impact do you think the current economic crisis will have on your portal over 2009?
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Offering Depth of Product To Estate Agents is Vital

Many portals wait until they have some form of critical mass before looking to provide estate agents with a substantial range of advertising options for promoting property and their brand.

Depth products can be a significant source of revenue and at the same time service your customer needs and aspirations.
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