Over the past 48 hours you will have noticed a few changes to the Realestate.co.nz website.
We have released a whole new platform, a ground-up rebuild that leaves the old site and focuses us to the future of delivering the best property finding experience in NZ. The process to this day began last year with conversations. Conversation grew into discussions and discussions grew into concepts.
We heard loud and clear from our current users of the site, and those who did not use it, what they liked, what they did not like and what they wished someone would give them – the latter component is so key, and yet at the same time so elusive as to be able to easily define what people really want when sometimes even they cannot articulate it.
We also took the opportunity to review the global leaders in real estate online solutions across the world, sites like Realestate.com.au in Australia, Rightmove in the UK and in the US Trulia and Zillow. These would be the sites that guided (but were not allowed to constrain) our thoughts and ideas.
Zipping ahead to today. We have built a new website that is different, certainly that is clear from some of the flow of emails received so far, as clearly people are not accustomed to change, however the feedback has been balanced. The essential focus of the new site is to allow anyone to use the site to easily accomplish two related but very different tasks – browsing and researching. These are two behaviours of real estate online search that are critical to understand in order for our site to deliver a unique and valuable experience.
Browsing
This is the start of any property buying (or renting experience) – it is typified by a “lean back” mode in the chair to view the screen – here the task is to chose a location and then browse through images in a large format in which property images can be scanned. This is achieved in the search result page for any location. Any property listing can be assessed by flicking through the portfolio of images without ever leaving the search results thereby ensuring you have your options in front of you.
A likely task before even scanning these images is the filtering of the properties in the area. This is done now using the right hand navigation with sliders to tightly define the key metrics of price, size of property. This filtering typically allows the user to refine the shortlist to a couple of dozen – ready for research. The great capability of the new site is that adjustments to these sliders does not require the “update” button – rather updates are made dynamically as you make a change allowing you to refine from 400 properties down to 20.
Research
This stage in the process is far more investigative and is typified by a “lean forward” mode in the chair closer to the computer terminal. At this stage it is all about capturing your favourites and this requires you to set up your “My Property” feature on the site. Doing this ensures that your properties and saved searches are always accessible from any computer. Storing your favorites from the search results then allows you to view each property in detail on the listing page.
This presentation is all about big images and rich content, both from the listing agents, as well as location based data such as Google maps and Zoodle property information. This is the stage when you can start to enquire about the property or plan to view open homes all of which are accessible from that listing page.
There is much we have learned over the past year that we have yet to implement, that is what will provide us with a great roll out of new functionality in the coming months, however it was important to get the new site live and bedded in – this does sometimes take a few days, and consequentially some issues, so we would ask for your patience.
Of course the other major change you will be aware of is the fact that the new Realestate.co.nz only features residential and lifestyle properties for sale or rent. The comprehensive content of commercial properties are now found on Prime Commercial, with businesses for sale on Prime Business and the agricultural sectors served by nzFarms.
This provides an introduction to the new site – future articles will highlight some of the key features of the site.
Sorry to say that I prefer the old site. As a real estate agent trying to conduct property value assessments one of the key factors in delivering clean crisp listing presentations is clean clear information.
Not everyone is happy to take a laptop into a home to do a listing presentation and it will be awhile before i-pads become common place too so there for we still rely heavily on printed doccuments to deliver information in a listing folder for our clients to consider in relation to pricing and marketing their home.
To try and print the other houses that are for sale in an area is a shambles! 1 listing is a 4 page print with advertising all through it and simply is not good enough to present to a prospective client who is judging your every word and presentation. To try and produce a report on every house for sale in an area that is comparable to the subject property is an exercise in futility and ultimate frustration. 12 listings – took 8 pages to print!
It is not just the agents that seem unhappy with the new format and layout, clients are complaining too. What Alistair appears to have forgotten is that we are the ones p[aying for the site and yet I don’t seem to remember being consulted on its layout and functionalities.
Yes the purchaser is the main user, but we are the ones paying and using it everyday for appraisals etc. A customer(buyer) might use it for 2-3 months once every 7-8 years.
The very first buyer I spoke to after it went live was extrememly disappointed with the site and she has also e-mailed you (before she spoke to me). She said that “I would rather search the individual agents websites than try to find a property on here”. That speaks volumes to me.
The site is still as slow as it ever was and also as unreliable. I am sorry Alistair, I have to say that this falls along way short of the kind of site that the industry could be proud to call its own.
I sincerely hope that you listen to the feedback that you will get over the new site and take it on board and make any necessary changes to finally produce a site that we are all proud of.
Sorry – you are not there yet!
Regards
Sean Powell
Hi
I thought you should know – I live in Aussi and have been using this site to look for properties in Wellington for about three months. Since this new site has been loaded, it has been slow, unwieldy and not nearly as intuitive to use, as before. I suspect that it is a result of the complexity of info that has now been included. Hopefully it’ll improve. I have been using open to view, for the last few days instead…I know that there isn’t as many listings but it is just easier to use at present. There is nothing worse than getting annoyed at the slowness of a site – I am sure you know. I hope for your sake it gets better. This is really important for us ‘out of country’ lookers. Sort it out!
On the plus side, I do think it looks nicer and like the bigger pics.
also, one last thing, I think it would be good to include a new listings only check box, at the end of the other search criteria.
Sean
Thanks for the feedback – the purpose of writing this post was to illicit feedback. Let me address your concerns.
1. Printing – I think it is important to appreciate that we built this website focused on providing the general public with a tool to be able to easily find and analyse properties on the market. I concede we did not build a website as a marketing tool for agents to be able to print reports. To create a report writing website service is a very different requirement and was not at the top of our task list.
Having said that we are implementing a pdf authoring tool in the next month or so that will provide users with the ability to print a formatted page for each listing.
2. I can assure you that we did share the development plans with industry representatives and we undertook user experience testing to ensure the functional experience was intuitive.
I am eager to engage in the feedback on the new site – I also am aware that we have taken a bold and significant step forward in approach to the website – naturally a change comes as an adjustment to many people and as such we are conscious that there will be an adjustment period. We trust people will appreciate the value of the new functionality and the continues comprehensive content.
Belinda
Thanks for your comments, I especially like the suggestion of “new listings” checkbox. I concede that we have had some performance issues and this is very high on our agenda at this time. We do recognise the overseas audience who comprise close to 1 in 3 of our audience and we value the service we can bring to share the rich content we have across over 94% of all offices.
We have with the new site changed some fundamentals of the way search is carried out – we have adopted the universal search box mode which with predictive text helps to get quickly to the are you are looking for rather than drop down boxes which are sluggish. The new right hand filter capability is both dynamic and rich in options which will drive to provide a more targeted search result and then allow the ability to flick through images of a property from within the search results.
We see this new website as a bold step forward deliberately leaving a clear space between ourselves and our competitors for providing a focused search result driven specialist property website. The proof will come in the results of audience engagement and support from the industry.
As a local (NZ) user, I have to agree with the above comments – the site is very slow to load and unwieldy. The aims for the new site as stated by yourselves in this blog are very good, but best not to make the claims for enhanced user experience without doing sufficient user acceptance testing. A couple of points:
1. Location search function is unclear and inconsistent. It’s hard to explain in words here but did you do user group testing of search functions? It is hard to skip back and forth and narrow down / expand serach criteria. Go on – try some suburb selections and try to make a quick addition or exclusion of a suburb within a city. (Unfortunately it compares poorly to open2view and Trademe)
2. The max and min search functions for beds and baths are a bit backward – why would you want to search on a maximum number of bathrooms for example? Most people will be looking for their minimum requirements within their budget, and anything above is worth considering too.
3. WAY TOO MUCH INVASIVE ADVERTISING. We know it keeps the site ticking, but it needs to not be distracting
4. Some very cool functions here such as the Viewing Stats but it seems like someone may have ‘gone to town’ on these at the expense of quick, clear, simple searching which is essentially what your users want most of all.
Thanks for my 2c worth
Thanks again for the feedback. I am concerned as to use experiences.
As I have stated we did undertake user testing specifically to look at the primary functions of the site. Dealing to the specifics of the questions you raise.
1. The search by location is driven by the home page search box which does have predictive text capability to offer options for a location. Alternatively you can use the browse by location function on the right hand side. Adding an additional suburb is driven from the LOCATIONS box which offers far more features and ease of location based search than the previous site which was driven by a single location search.
2. The sliders for filtering are set at default and provide from the experiences we saw of users to select the criteria – the min max is optional and useful. If you want 2+ bedroom you move the slider of the min if you want 2 or 3 bedrooms but not 4 you move both the min and max sliders.
3. We have actually removed a large component of advertising on the site – we used to have a big banner at the top of the page and another down the side now we only have one unit only on the listing page. There is no advertising on the home page or on any of the search pages.
4. The viewing stats were presented on the former site – our focus clearly has to be for the speed and efficient searching.
I hope I have provided some answers of value, in doing so I am not in any way diminishing your comments, I merely wanted to share some answers.
I absolutely agree with the comments re searching. This new site is dreadful. You have completely taken away the ability to quick search especially for different suburbs within a city. Previously I could scroll up the main page and click on the suburb I wanted to find. Now with the “new website” this has completely disappeared. Trademe still does this, and I have been using both this site and Trademe searching this way for years.
Please reinstate the old search method!!!
Hello
I never fail to understand why companies change websites just for the sake of it. I was used to the old site which was quick and easy to use. The new site is not as user friendly and slow. Being based in the UK I use this site frequently to look for suitable property. — I suppose I will have to use the competion a bit more.
One thing I would like to point out is that many corporate environments prevent staff from changing to the lastest version of the browser- which means that new functionality is not able to used by people using corporate machines to do some private we surfing.
Additionally people who are not “tech savvy” find it complicated and confusing to get a new browser and often have to ask advice on what to do.
It is not that I am oppoosed to change for change sake– but it takes time for people to adapt to new things. Imagine if your local supermarket changed its layout each time that you visited- it has the impact of making the experience frustrating
Go back to the old version- it may have had is faults- but it was easy to use
thanks
Frustrated UK User
Steve,
Thanks for those comments. I would like to assure you the decision to move to a new website and platform was not taken lightly and was certainly not for the sake of it. We operate in a competitive marketplace and we are alert to the feedback we monitor of the judgment people make to our site vs our competitors.
In today’s internet always connected world you are only one click away from irrelevance, and we do not take for granted the more than 400,000 unique visitors who use our site every month.
As to the comment in regard to web browsers in corporate environments, I would agree with you were it not for the fact that IE6 and older web browsers are potentially a high security issue for any company – it has little to do with our websites presentation on that platform, as I wrote in the recent post about IE6 it has been recommended by countries to their citizens to upgrade for the security flaws. If a corporate IT department in any company company has not upgraded beyond IE6 I would judge they should be brought to task by the management. I have experience of running IT infrastructure for large corporates and I can tell you first hand how tech savvy most managers are these days and they without even the IT department initiative would be calling for upgrade to IE6 years ago.
I am really very sorry that you are not seeing the appeal of the new site, that is personally disappointing, however I do appreciate the opportunity to at least converse on this issue.
Hello
I have to agree with the above complaints, I use this website many times a day and now find it slow & confusing , Its seems a shame that something that worked so well should be altered.
I have seen a similar website problem in the United States where the feedback was so loud that the company went back to the old site while attempting to find a suitable more user friendly version of the old and new, I will try to continue to use this new version and hope that the interface may come back to being simpler, faster, and more user friendly, thankyou for the opportunity to comment.
Simon
SImon
There is much that can be learned from others experiences. We are monitoring our situation hourly as we do not and cannot take for granted the support of users and recognise that we cannot expect people to jump through hoops to learn a new website. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Living overseas I use http://www.realestate.co.nz to access detail on property in Auckland. Since your website changes I have been completely unable to do searches. I find this very unfortunate. Frankly the new set up is hopeless. As other users have mentioned, I will now be dependant on the real estate agent sites rather than yours. If you choose to use the old site that actually worked I will switch back again. Until then, this set up is too frustrating to waste any further time on.
Looking at houses in Christchurch, then electing to use the ‘and other locations’ search worked well. However, when shifting my search to a suburb in Tauranga, then once again using the ‘and other locations’ search it continued to turn up the earlier Christchurch suburbs. Further attempts to search continued to bring up the original locations. This site is not as easy and as quick to navigate around as the previous site.
Rob
Appreciate the feedback – the reaction to the selecting nearby locations is great. Unfortunately I am aware of the “stored” location issue that is causing the later searches to become confused and I can appreciate that does lessen the experience. This issue is a known bug which the developers are working on to clear and thereby allow searches to be fixed to your selection. I hope they will have this fixed soon!
I also would have to agree with the above comments.As a regular user of the website the search function on this site is terrible. Trademe and Harcourts have very simple and effective ways to search for properties. Maybe you could use their’s as a example instead of trying to over complicate things. Use the “KISS” philosophy “keep it simple stupid”. It is also very slow, even when using google chrome. Bring back the old website I say. Hope this feedback helps you to make improvements.
I want to thank Alistair for his open and frank responses to the feedback on the new site. I have used the site daily for over a year, and have also been perplexed by the erratic performance of the new site. There are functionalities that I enjoy… Such as the ability to select nearby suburbs on a search and I like the slide selections and being able to select a minimum land/seciton size. The thing that annoys me most at the moment is that my saved searches won’t let me change them to email me daily! Anyway – Thanks again to Alistair for being so open to feedback – I really love the realestate.co.nz website and I hope that it will become my favourite website again soon.
Interesting… How can I view open homes in a certain area now? Am I really that stupid to figure it out….
New site looks good, BUT please bring back the old way of serching. Thanks
Thanks for these additional comments.
(Hibino – the search for open homes feature of the old site is not at this stage accessible – apologies).
Let me just say, we collectively have learnt a lot this week, we are working to address the issue of maintaining the support and loyal advocates for the site whilst striving to push forward with new features. Clearly we may have taken a step just too far. We can and will make decision in the very near future, so stay tuned.
I live overseas and have been using the site for about 12 months. I like the new presentation but find it very annoying not to be able to select multiple suburbs. Bring that back and you will have won me.
The old site was more user friendly. The new one does not filter the search down even after specifying the parameters.For eg. if i select properties upto the value of 500,000 it shows million dollar properties right from the start! Due to this I have stopped using the realestate website as often as I used to. Good effort guys but please put back the old site.
I personally found the new site (allowing for the odd teething problem) to be advanced and a most refreshing change. The search function was intuitive and I found it easy to use and the look and feel of the site was contemporary and easy to use.
However, the best thing we have seen this week is the ability of Alistair and his team to acknowledge the opinions of their (and our) customers. A courageous step back to the old site to satisfy customer wants and needs.
I am confident that in the near future they will come up with a compromise that is even better!
I think the biggest mistake was assuming that the users of the site would have all the latest technology. Like many home users, we don’t have all those upgrades and ‘n minus one’ things that you said were necessary to use your new site successfully. You have designed a site to impress the technophiles and perhaps lost sight of the fact that many house buyers and sellers are not so advanced!
I live in London and frequently look at the site, one of the things that I o not like about the new website is on the “map” function as it does specifiaclly show you that address but only the area, not so helpful if you don’t know the exact area. Good luck sorting out some of the issues as I think the site has alot going for it. like the way you can look at the pictures now.
[...] a new version of realestate.co.nz was launched early last week. Users quickly responded to the launch announcement with generally negative [...]
Hi,
I just tried to load the website and login, and hey presto, you seem to have a new look and now plenty of unhappy users. Well, count me in too, because my login does not work, and when i try to request to change the password, I get the message that a user with my email address does not exist! How does that happen? Did you add some new ‘feature’ that makes established users setup brand new accounts? What a mess indeed!!!
I guess TradeMe is the way to go in future…
Nice to see you listening to feedback and changing back. I think you’ve tried too much and forgotten some of the basics of website design (whats with the right hand menu?)…. you also need to slap your testers who’ve really let you down.
hi
have been using the realestate site for over the past year, as an overseas buyer.
I am pretty tech savvy, but hate using your new site. It is too cumbersome (too many clicks) to get move from one suburb to the other, too slow, the site ‘clicks back’ to the previous suburb; and many clicks are needed to move to another district. Most of the time I have given up in frustration at the cumbersome search methods. You took off the maps, which makes it very useless to see where the house is located, for those that are not living in the area.
Good to see you are moving back to the ‘old site’ , can hardly wait so that I can easily review the real estate options for overseas buyers. by the way, did like the size of the pictures, and ability to look at the pictures without moving to the next page.
Hi,
I have used your website probably once a week for the last few years and cant believe how hard it is to use since the changes great to see your bringing back the old site!
James
Hi Thanks for trying to improve the site I used to know and love, however this new one is a nightmare to use. It has deleted all my saved property and wont let me add more. The pictures ar nicer but searching is frustrating. I too am looking on Trade Me now.
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