The No.1 source of real estate information is nowadays without doubt the web – whatever research you turn to here in NZ or overseas the statistics bear it out.
The most recent National Association of Realtors Home Buyers Survey from the USA undertaken late last year showed that at 87% the web is the most widely used source of information. In fact of the age group of 25 to 44 years old 94% rated the web as the top source of real estate information.
The latest NZ survey data will be released this month with the Nielsen Online NZ Real estate report for 2009. The data from last year showed that at over 70% the web was rated the top source of real estate information.
With this as the backdrop there is great interest globally to assess who are the leading online players in each market. The latest analysis of this subject undertaken by Global edge – a UK based property portal that has established itself as an analytical tool for the online marketplace, provides some interesting insight and has sparked some reaction.
To create their Global Top 100 Property Portals Global edge decided to use a calculation based on how searchable web portals are rating each based on a a propriatory application called LinkScape from a specialist search engine optimisation company SEOMoz. The technology tries to assess the richness of inbound links to each website as a surrogate for the appeal / credibility / rating of a site in much the same way as Google does for its search engine.
Naturally the top 100 has a top 10 has a heavy bias to US website with half being US and realtor.com being the #1 site. This is not surprising it is the website of the National Association of Realtors and much like realestate.co.nz with the support of the industry is the most trusted, respected and used website.
Aside from the 5 US websites the other 5 in the top 10 showed sparked some interest – Funda.nl in Holland and realestate.com.au. Both of these are major players in their market but certainly operate in smaller markets compared to the US. This naturally got me thinking as to the impact scale of population would have on the results, especially as to how our own site realestate.co.nz would rate on a per population basis. Realestate.co.nz was rated number 60 in the Top 100 – the only NZ website in the top 100.
So accepting that this calculation methodology is not statistically full proof I applied a weighting to the web links of LinkScape based on population to arrive at a revised Top 20 Global Property portals.
I am naturally delighted to show in the table below the fact that when assessed on this basis realestate.co.nz blasts into the Top 10, as the 7th most linked real estate portal globally based on a proportion of population – clearly another great example of NZ punching well above it’s weight.
Credit should also go to the other standout web portal operators, from Ireland Daft.ie at #2, complemented by fellow country operator MyHome.ie at #4 and Hemnet.se from Sweden at #8, and its complentary country operation Bovision.se.
I am assuming that you are stating that realestate.co.nz is the only NZ real estate website in the top 100 because Trademe Properties is owned by an Australian Company Fair Fax?
I don’t think Trademe would be in the top 100 as it is not a real estate website. and
very little real estate business is generated with it, compared with a dedicated real estate website.
Any transactions have to then go through a solicitor, plus whoever is trying to sell, has
no way to qualify a buyer, reference of the ‘sale’ of the Catlins property where the out
come was very disapointing.
Not sure if one can really determine whether “very little business is generated with it”. If there are over 90,000 properties listed with Trademe one has to assume that they are doing something right.
Mike,
In regard to your first comment. The assessment was undertaken by a UK based company. They evaluated each market based on their view of the portals providing real estate listings.
They would likely have not seen Trade me property as it is a category with Trade me, which when viewed from the UK would likely be judged as a online trading site as per eBay in the UK. I do not think the ownership has anything to do with it nor the location of the owners. The UK website of propertyfinder.co.uk is owned by REA group in Australia for example.
As to your second comment, whilst I am not sure the objective data Donna is quoting (although clearly I would concur absolutely!) – however just for the purpose of clarification -
Trade me property features 90,000 listings within this is homes, rentals, farms, commercial properties. As compared to realestate.co.nz which has today 111,000 listings. On a like for like basis the comparison between trade me property and realestate.co.nz is as follow:
Homes for sale (includes lifestyle property and sections):
Realestate.co.nz 71,216
Trade me property 50,584
(realestate.co.nz does not take any listings from private sellers)
Commercial property for sale or lease :
Realestate.co.nz 23,532
Trade me property 16,728
Rental properties (realestate.co.nz does not take any listings from private landlords) :
Realestate.co.nz 7,248
Trade me property 13,214
Thanks for the information Alistair,
Can you explain why realestate.co.nz do not list private sale homes, I also see that open2view do not do photography for private selling houses. Why are these services not avaliable for private sellers.
Thanks
Mike
Mike,
Thanks for the interest in the site.
The ownership of realestate.co.nz is entirely held within the real estate industry and the view of the shareholders is that the website should be for the exclusive use of licensed real estate agents. To have private listings on the site is in their view a competitive threat to the licensed agents.
ok thanks for that.
Cheers
Mike