Appreciate these issues – it is the great virtue of this blog to provide us as a company with the ability to listen – that is what I want to do and in so doing act on the comments to enhance the site.

Specifically when it comes to price we come up against the issue which constantly perplexes me – we publish the data we receive – it is the agent acting on behalf of the vendor who decides what form of “price marketing” they will utilise – we have to comply.

Set against this reality of the situation we face is the irrefutable fact shown in the recent research we undertook through Nielsen Online that showed that the #1 request of users of this site and all real estate websites at a staggering 96% desired component of all listings was an “accurate price or price range” displayed on the listing.

The key thing is sharing this with real estate agents – something I do at every opportunity and gradually attitudes are changing – by you asking the question we will through this blog bring it to their attention.

As to the more “subjective” search criteria – this is where this website will head in the coming months (no definite date as yet) – but I recognise that it is the future – stayed tuned!

Thanks for those comments. Let me share my response and I would be keen for you to respond.

1. The purpose of this website is not to “move” listings – we are a publisher of listings – same as the other sites. We do not sell property, we are not an agent. Therefore rich content is the most important thing. With that as the backbone of the site the key is to attract an audience.

2. Rich content can be frustrating – only though if a site cannot provide filtering. Trade Me by that measure is even more frustrating – it has 1,194,733 listings at this moment!!

3. Taking this issue of Blenheim – yes we have 219 listings on the site within the Blenheim town. But the reality most people have constraints – size, location and price.
So taking that into consideration if you have $230,000 to spend then I would say that the selection available is 52 listings – if the property has to have 3 or more bedrooms then there are just 42 to examine if you narrow your search to just the immediate town area and want to exclude Townsend, Redwood Village and Mayfield then there are just 18 to examine.

So I would argue that in reality nobody wants to search through more than 40 listings, but what they do want is convenience and the knowledge that they are searching within the most comprehensive selection – that is why they come to our site and use it regularly

We know from research that buyers use our site and Trade Me – Trade me provides an insight into private sale listings whilst our site provides the most comprehensive selection of property currently marketed by real estate professionals. At this time and as has been in the past the private sales market makes up around 10% of sales and probably a slightly higher number of listings.

If you believe that what moves listings is how comprehensive the site is, then I suggest you need to start a campaign to promote this sites advantage over Trademe.

As a user, one thing I find frustrating is the overload of possibilities. 200 properties in Blenheim- assuming they could all basically fit my criteria, how do I make a choice ????
Yes, volume is good, but it can be daunting.

I will never forget our first visit to a large US shopping mall. I found some great things I hadn’t seem in NZ before, & my partner found more nice clothes that she had seen in her life, but after 4 hours following her around the shops we left with just my purchases because she could not make up her mind from the huge choice available !!!

I agree with you that inaccurate listings can be a source of frustration and confusion for website users and agents could do better to promote properties as accurately as possible. Cheers.

Your assessment is valid and I appreciate the in depth review. The facts you sight speak to one of the challenges we face in running this website, it is a constant source of challenge to us – suburbs!!

Most countries operate a postcode or zip code structure and if you look at say a UK, Danish, Japanese, US or Australian website for property you select a Zip code and every property listed has a zip code. This ensures that properties are “where they are supposed to be!”

For NZ despite the best efforts of NZ Post we do not have universally recognised or adopted Postcodes. When it comes to property listings agents send us listings with an address (the street) – they then add a suburb – this suburb is their choice and can be influenced less by exactly where the property is as to where the agent may at time wish it to be. This is clearly recognised where a property is near a boundary between one suburb (favourable) and another (less favourable!). I am not saying that agents mislead – they know that is unacceptable, but unfortunately there is no “hard wired” correlation between street name / property and suburb.

So in the case in point take this listing at 165 Howick Road. The agents has selected the suburb “Blenheim” whilst clearly it is in the suburb of Witherlea. The listing is even titled Witherlea. As far as our site is concerned (naturally I cannot speak for how Trade Me Property works)- we operate the following rules for keyword search.

1. If the keyword searched for on the site exactly matches a database suburb name we show the listings in this suburb – 3 in Witherlea.

2. If you are searching within a suburb the keyword will be searched within the search results that is why when you search Blenheim property (Blenheim being a suburb) for the word Witherlea it looks for all the properties that feature that word and you get 16.

I have explained this in detail to demonstrate the business rules of the site – I guess the key issue we face is that we are a publisher and as such have no opportunity or ability to review and audit each listing – it is up to the agent to provide us with the data on a listing that best markets the property. I hope by having this dialogue and pointing agents to it we my expose this issue which from a user perspective can lead to some confusion of content.

As a final point I must apologise I got my First National offices confused the Mark Stevenson office does subscribe to our website – my mistake.

Thanks for highlighting this – I want to be clear I am not saying that in every area of the country we have twice the content. I merely chose a random selection of suburbs, I chose ones that were discrete areas that can be compared on the 3 sites – each search was for the suburb excluding surrounding suburbs.

The example of Witherlea is interesting – not somewhere I know but showcases the situation where in this market even with 90% of the industry using realestate.co.nz we still have companies like First National in Witherlea that do not subscribe – that office has 35 of the 49 listings in that suburb and of the 49, 25 are sections. Equally whilst we have only 3 houses they are from Summit and Harcourts – neither of which use Trade Me.

As ever real estate is a local business and each office selects the appropriate media that they feel provides the right service – we have tried to get First National in that suburb to subscribe, but at this time they choose not to.