Note: This story has been updated with further information on onthehouse.com.au.
Australian real estate information website onthehouse.com.au is to launch an AUD$80 million IPO as early as this Thursday, according to smartcompany.com.au.
smartcompany.com.au quotes Jim McKerlie, who has been named onthehouse.com.au’s chairman, as saying that the website will be launching a prospectus in the near future. “Our database covers almost every residential property in Australia,” McKerlie told the website.
“I can confirm we are considering an IPO,” McKerlie told propertyportalwatch.com, but declined to comment on when the IPO might go ahead.
In its presentation to investors, onthehouse.com.au says it plans to disrupt the Australian online real estate market the same way zoopla.co.uk has in the UK, zillow.com has in the US, and carsales.com.au has in the Australian automotive vertical.
The website, which was first established in 2006, says its vision is to become the leading online real estate content provider in Australia. At the moment, onthehouse.com.au offers details of sold and rented prices across Australia, property reports, an agent search tool and a tool to compare property values along with a listing search.
The website is free-to-list for agents, however it charges private sellers $250 per listing and says it plans to sell some on-site display advertising in future.
onthehouse.com.au is operating in a marketplace dominated by REA Group’s realestate.com.au, which made $195.4 million in revenue in 2010, up from $168.2 million in 2009.
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{ 51 comments… read them below or add one }
Thats funny my brokers spruiking this now
Looks like a very profitable exit for some smaller industry players
They are missing something that is kind of important….Traffic. Just by taking a quick look at Google adplanner (not the best place to get accurate data, but pretty good). It shows that OnTheHouse.com.au has less than half of one percent the traffic of Zillow (they compare themselves to Zillow in the Smartcompany article). They probably have 200k unique visitors a month. What’s up with that?
200,000 visitors /month is still 200,000 opportunities /month for agents and advertisers.
Pilot Estate Agents are advertising our for sale listings with onthehouse.com.au
Great free sales information available for consumers on this site, which is the big drawcard here. But to date they have not been very visible on the search engines, no doubt this publicity will help. Interesting valuation for what is currently mainly a free service with future plans to develop advertising revenue.
I suggest that people avoid onthehouse. This site’s guestmate has many many incorrect, false and misleading information on properties.
Content is the first big issue- being free does not guarantee agent participation. Most bulk uploaders charge a fee for feeds to portals and agents will want to know they are on a good lead generator before committing more during the present and tougher climate to come.
Secondly, homehound has been around for a long time now on a free to list basis and it does not have anywhere near every agent, nor the content nor the visits that the two majors have.
Not insurmountable odds, but a real clear strategic plan needs to go into the portal side and it doesn’t look as if the proposed board has the necessary skills to do this. I hope to be proven wrong, but it would seem to me that there are some highly qualified portal execs around that should have been approached to take the helm.
Its an both an exit and aggregation play.
The consumer focused bit was doomed without scale.
On the house has been around three years and still only sub 200k ubs.
so bleed the cash out of console and portplus and you get some traction.
The most interesting part of this for agency principals is they intend to use all the customer and agent data in the console and portplus packages to try and enter the data business.
So consumer business struggles as it always has ,Agent pays,with increased prices.
All the cash being raised is going back the the vendors from what i can see and growth is to funded by a 5m debt package and profits from Console and Rockend.
Luke,
Why would your agents post on this site. These sites are all designed to take traffic away from your own site, steal your google search results for every agent, Pilot and each of your listings. They have built their sites to index all your details, all your listing details and all your agents details.
They are now hoping to make $80 million on your listings. Well then since your own site has all your listings and since it could be the exclusive source for that data…..what would an IPO on your own site be worth. Even at 1% you could get $800,000!
Can you and your agents afford to give away this much cash to someone who is stealing from you every dayÉ
Lewis
Content and traffic are going to be a huge issue for this fledgling portal.
Does anyone remember a large Australian media company dropping over $20 million trying to set up my home.com.au? this website was defunct after twelve months. Not to mention Google!! these blokes are internet wizards and they gave up also because it became all too hard. Unless the people behind onthehouse.com.au have got some super dooper business plan that the senior execs at News, Fairfax and Google have not thought of, forget it!
Will be interesting to see how this one plays out. good luck to them i say.
And to Lewis, I was a little bemused to click on the link through your name to the anti realtor.ca site which read- ”when you take control of the Advertising Vehicle, you control the message!” now that sounds something like middle eastern dictator would say. Obviously it is important that there is a harmonious relationship between agents and real estate portals but as we all know that this is not always easy. In reality, you have got think about NUMBER 1- the consumer. Without them you have nothing, as content leads to more traffic and increased traffic leads to more content.
I am not sure about Canada but in Australia, the two biggest media players own the two major portals where editorial integrity and high quality journalism is of the utmost importance. The strength of the paid Aussie portal model is that is based around the consumer getting unbiased and up to date real estate/market information.
However, I do agree with you about private listings being on paid real estate agent supported portals, allowing this is a real kick in the guts to real estate professionals everywhere. As an industry, real estate websites should stamp this out because they are biting off the hand that feeds them.
Thanks Trent,
If you don’t control your advertising message someone else will and since REALTORS by law are required to do so, they need to ensure they alone have control over this medium. When the consumer becomes aware of the legal repercussions of Listing Syndication on non-realtor owned sites the class action law suits will destroy many realty companies.
The media players sole interest in satisfying stock holders hopes for increased share value. This dictates ALL media companies today or newspapers are no more than advertising providers that draw traffic to their medium by content. In the past the news served this purpose. It no longer does.
In Canada 2 major media Giants are attempting to create new revenues by entering the real estate market. Since the portals they create are not governed by the same laws as a portal owned by an association that is governed by strict laws designed to protect the consumer, these Giants can offer a portal that could replace the dominant realtor controlled site in Canada. Without the limitations REALTORS have imposed on them by law, these portals can act in a “perceived” manner that satisfies consumers wants that the government and industry has already determined is not in the “actual” best interest of the consumer.
In Canada consumers have been insulated from a world wide real estate meltdown and had their values increase where our neighbor has seen massive declines. The laws in place work in Canada but sadly in a world dominated by the registration of a domain name changing the medium, action is needed.
So too in Australian the Agents need to control and profit from a Portal they own.
What are your internet costs per month? In the Australia, the cost is oncharged to the vendor in most cases. Does the Canadian system work like this?
As a realtor, you have to realise you cannot have control over everything your business is associated with. I am not sure where your business is positioned within your marketplace, but do you think your larger competitors are worrying about and spending time trying to get a half assed internet business off the ground? i bet their not!! the only concern for them would be their core business- LISTING AND SELLING REAL ESTATE. I reckon you need to move on from this because if you don’t, it could be to the detriment of your own business. You have to understand that realtors are experts in their own field are not media proprietors or dot com
geniuses.
Now i am going to move onto to registration of domain names which you also touched on. Just because other people or businesses had the foresight to register these before you is no reason to say that ” action is needed” I really wish i was the person who registered realetstate.com.au, carsales.com.au or news.com.au but i didn’t . You also have to realize it is still free market in the regions we both live in.
If a portal acts irresponsibly or starts charging too much, the market will respond giving other portals opportunities. It seems to me, Canada is not yet at that point because more people would be joining your cause.
Posts on http://www.business2.com.au seem to indicate that the IPO will payout the whole $50m to the vendors and leave only $5m borrowed money for marketing and site development. If true, then this is a risky proposition for shareholders and can only be seen as an oportunistic exit for the vendors.
Would be great to get some light thrown on these assertions, from the directors of onthehouse or from the underwriters.
Trent, you are right it is a FREE market. That’s the great part. That means anyone including REALTORS can act as an independent business and solely promote their own website. What a great concept.
Clearly you have no understanding of the real estate industry and what skills are required to sell a home. Real estate is not Porn and as such cannot be promoted online in the same way. Portal owners hoping to build a long term business on the Porn model but for real estate will continue to fail and sooner than later be revealed for what they really are. Nothing more than weak search engines where pay to post has replaced pay per click.
I have a sound understanding of the real estate business. Thanks. It is you I am more concerned about. How are you going with your crusade anyway?
Lewis,
We advertise with onthehouse.com.au to increase our exposure so our vendors will benefit.
I think our vendors will be better off if we advertise on many portals then one, two or a few…
Luke
OK Trent, How many clients homes have you, yourself sold?
Does your portal protect sellers from fraudulent use of their data?
Can you tell me how many actual buyers exist for any one listing displayed on any portal?
Have you been professionally educated in the psychology of Buyers?
Are you experienced and trained in the art of negotiation as it pertains to someones single largest investment?
Can you list the top 5 reasons people move from seeing a listing online to contacting a professional for assistance?
Does your portal protect children from the watchful eyes of pedophiles?
Does your portal employ image recognition technology to scrap personal details of the sellers on your portal?
Thanks for your concerns. The crusade is growing on an international level as you are starting to see in Australia but in America we have assisted 7 regional MLS systems into blocking posting listings on non-realtor controlled sites.
In Canada we are continuing to add members and educate as we go along. We are having some issues as local associations are now looking into the revenue streams we have disclosed. In the end we don’t care if the associations move to our model because the agents control those associations and they will be the ones to benefit financially.
Just a great day in online real estate marketing.
BTW, Just to be clear.
Google Base really shut down (for now) for only one reason. That being privacy concerns. Google determined that it could not insulate it’s shareholders from the legal repercussions envisioned with privacy breaches. Currently under world wide scrutiny, Google could find no answer to open access of Home seller data. Maybe we all can learn from their wisdom?
Lewis,
How about you finally answer the questions I have asked you previously. E.g. who pays for the advertising in Canada, the agent or vendor? Go back to the middle of this page and you will see what I mean. Once you do this, I will respond to your questions. Thanks.
To others,
If Lewis does not respond to this question, Does anyone else know? As I would be interested to find out.
Trent,
In Canada the agent pays for the advertising and whether the home sells or not. The commission rate average that sellers are charged is 2.5% and buyers pay on average 2.5% (although our market, being the most stable in the world because of the controls in the system, is seeing commissions reduced in many cases to 2%). This would represent over 90% of all homes sold in Canada.
In Canada most agents are independent contractors who pay their brokerage between $1000 and $1900 to rent desk space and for administrative charges associated with running a brokerage. The agent retains 95 to 100 per cent of all commission charges and pays ALL expenses themselves.
Of course additional charging models have appeared and disappeared over the decades.
Agents have been able to reduce their commissions and still remain profitable because of the reduced cost of online marketing. With 95% control of buyer traffic online, all headed to realtor.ca, the average agent pays under $100 per year to support that portal with unlimited listings and no timelines or additional fees added. Listings are all uploaded via feeds from the regional mls datatbases. Most major brands offer virtual charges and personal websites as part of the office space rental fee. Top agents all own and control their own online presence.
Private for sales, have access to sites like the agents are paying for in Australia, with total online tools for under $200 with unlimited time periods for this one time only payment. They even take the pictures for them in that price!!!
What must be remembered is that the Sellers(Vendors) in the end still pay because the commission rate charged (although conditional upon performance) takes into consideration all costs the agent has to run their business including marketing costs of individual homes.
BTW the prices Australians are paying to market online is absolute idiocy and the top portals are only successful today because of lack of education of the general public and the agents themselves.
I have tried to be a thorough as possible in this response but if I missed anything please request clarification.
FYI I have personally sold over 2000 homes, so my personal credentials as an expert on real estate marketing are obvious. My clients have gained over $500 million in personal net worth from the homes I have assisted them in buying or selling.
Lewis,
Great information. I was wondering how you could claim to have 50/60,000 agents in Canada, when we have only 10,000 in Australia. Our system works on the basis of highly qualified “Agents” employing basically qualified sales consultants. If a consultant wishes to become an agent there is some several year of part time study to qualify for Agent status whilst remaining in the real estate work force.
Can you tell me what qualifications your agents need to set up a Shop/space in Canada and how long it would take this agent to gain this qualification.
Your “personal net worth calculation” for your 2000 clients is either wrong or you are a magician. The average of 2000 for $500m sales = $250,000. Me thinks the figure is “gross” not “Net”.
The calculation is Net and the actual figure is $673 Million and growing daily, but Canadian law requires strict calculation methodologies so it’s easier just to advertise a number that can be guaranteed under an advertising standards complaint. Not magic just empowering buyers with information that they can rely on.
eg. Last night a client Netted $360,000 on an initial $137,000 purchase which sold last night for $497,000 after all fees were paid. The home had no open exposure online and had only 2 photos of the outside of the home available on realtor.ca without login required. In 7 days 485 page views of the listing happened on realtor.ca which also sent 423 click through accesses to my personal website. Of those 423 page views 23 requests for login access to the inside of the home were requested and 19 were approved. The actual buyer (who used an outside agent to represent them) viewed the home on my personal site, after a click through from realtor.ca to see the virtual tour and interior photos, the first day and revisited 2 times prior to viewing the home in person. The buyers requested login access for more details for their parents prior to seeing the home in person for the first time.
Using this process my clients privacy was protected, Only qualified buyers had access to inside photos and details, and I added 3 prospects of which 2 have already scheduled meetings with me. I have the IP addresses of all those who were given login access and cross referenced all names against local records to ensure authenticity prior to “letting them virtually inside the house”.
My personal site is fully monetized with ancillary products and services provided. This listing had already generated $732 in additional revenues which were credited to the seller as a commission reduction. The home is projected to earn me an additional $1000 or more after the sale from continued product and services sales not directly involving me as anyone’s agent. My local BMW dealership partner has scheduled 2 appointments from their special offer on my site attached to just this home. I will earn $200 if either purchases a car from them within the next 6 months.
This is why Agents need to control the process of marketing online because the monitoring needed to ensure the client is both protected and marketed to the fullest, means watching day to day by the professional hired to sell the home.
I have used this method for 6 years with no open access to any of my clients homes and every home has sold during that period. My listings are edited and revised daily or weekly online as we strive to maximize response and click throughs. My staff includes an internet expert who apprenticed under me for 3 years prior to moving into her role just so she could learn about real estate marketing.
I am impressed with your privacy controls. Thanks for the explanation.
Just did an audit of property listings on our site to try to determine from an owners perspective whether we would be breaching their privacy.
Firstly, there are no notes from owners precluding my site from displaying all the images to everyone.
Secondly, The images were provided to the agent by the owner. I know of no preclusion clause given to agents for limiting the images being viewed by everyone.
Thirdly- the images give no clues to any unscrupulous person.
Fourthly- vendors/owners want as many images of their homes on as many sites as they can get so that they can get as many potential prospects as they can get to become leads for agents.
Lastly – we do not, nor does any portal or agent site determine what and what number of images are posted.
I must be missing something here. According to Lewis, pedophiles are one of the dangers in openly listing images of the interior of the house- how is this? I found no images of children on our site, nor did I find images of childrens photos. What basis do you have Lewis for this assertion. I have 4 children and in no way would I connect pedophilia opportunity with images on a property or agent portal. Me thinks a long long bow is drawn here.
I agree with you Vic.
Oh- and another thing. The internet is free it is not for Lewis or any other person or Institution to endeavour to control it. I belongs to you and me and everybody else that wants to use it.
It is self regulating and we don’t need governments to legislate to tell us what can and can’t be done.
If they did then Lewis would not be able to do what he does with impunity ie call for subscriptions to a portal that will never get off the ground.
Vic, I agree we don’t need any government controls and freedom of speech should be protected at all cost. That said the government already has controlled the net in Canada and Australia. In Canada the government forced an agent owned site, realtor.ca, to display FSBO listings as long as they paid some commission, even $1 (that’s right ONE DOLLAR). Google is already under great pressure for privacy issues.
In Australia, how did any company trademark the words “real estate” . Your government allowed it! Luckily the trademark is specific and can be easily overwhelmed rendering it buried in SE results.
As to privacy and pedophiles or thiefs or rapists or even simple privacy theft. In the next day or two when time permits I will have my staff complete a simple 15 min review of a home from your portal. I will post the results here and you can decide for yourself.
I hope you are genuine in your comments about having 4 children but you should never reveal that online either. I think you will see what I mean when we complete a review on a home on your portal.
BTW this also opens up an unbelievable opportunity for an ethical portal owner!
Take care Lewis- I am not authorizing you to do an audit or review of our site, let alone publishing the results.
Everyone
I have just had the time to review this thread and am amazed at the discussion.
Firstly, i would have thought the agent had a duty of care to the vendor to ensure that their property is exposed to as many potential buyers as possible to ensure the highest price is yielded.
Secondly, to do so means advertising the property on as many many marketing channels as the agent or vendor (depending on the market) can afford (as long as they deliver results).
Finally, closed systems never work. Look at AOL. People specialise in different things and the specialist should be allowed to play a role in the real estate transaction process … whether it is legal, advertising, home moving, and so on …
Lewis … seems like you like closed systems. One where the agent controls everything – even the commission pricing! Unfortunately open systems are the future – not closed. So the challenge is how to embrace not fear.
Thanks for the discussion
Simon Baker
Methinks Simon might have some insight in this space. And yes, open systems are the future. Anything that brings more traffic to a property listing has to benefit both the vendor and the agent through simple open market principles. Ignoring the individuals behind the 80m IPO for a second, the industry as a whole benefits from this sort of activity and innovation. Good luck to them I reckon.
Well put Simon.
I am amazed at the lack of knowledge that exists in this marketplace, that being property portals. No it is not the agents duty to expose a clients most personal life details online to the entire world when fewer than 40 buyers ever exist for any one property. This really does not matter in this discussion because privacy controls will be legislated after the consumer and governments become aware of issues with the portal industry.
I can understand in building a business and building company worth requires any business to act in ways to benefit that said business. Comments like exposing clients homes to the most internet viewers may serve to build your business with uneducated and misinformed agents and sellers but it comes by promoting misinformation.
None of the Aussie protals offer any differences over others. There are no new industry leading technologies present nor are there any corporate policies found on those sites that protect the consumer. Vic you have already authorized everyone who visits your portal to view the content and then in a free society make their own assessments of what they see. They are free to make any comments they want that their eyes see and their brains interpret. This is the DANGER of the current portal model!
I suspect with the search function on Vic’s portal that the moving companies in Australia don’t even have to pay you guys for a list of newly listed sellers to contact because they can visit your site and get that info for FREE. Mortgage brokers and lawyers and antique dealers probably don’t pay you either. I could go on and on.
As I have stated before the #1 portal in Australia, realestate.com.au can legally have it’s entire NATURAL SE results steered permanently away from their site in 60 days if anyone wanted to do so. All Legal and with 100% certainty. It can be accomplished for less than $200,000 a year and their is nothing REA can do. Now to assume a portal is worth anything more is foolish and based on a business assessment that is the result of being viewed by uneducated investors.
Vic, I can see your real business plan is now online. You are a FSBO site. I suspected this from day one but your business plan is now clearly exposed. I hope the agents on your site find out soon and head over to the #1 who now has banned FSBOs. Of course agents could continue to support and promote a portal designed to destroy their businesses.
Nice to see my interpretations of your postings were correct.
Vic, my team completed a 15 min search on your site. I will not reveal addresses here as per your request but here is some of the information they determined:
1) teen age girls bedroom siding onto quiet side street with a fence blocking the view and no alarm on window. She uses a computer (windows btw) and has a close best friend. She is over weight and her favorite color is red (not pink) and she is about 14 years old.
2) Families who use Mac computers and prefer westinghouse as a brand of choice
3) Couple married in the early 70’s who are moving to a smaller home
4) Hyundai car owner who in the past owned Fords
5) Many Many homes with NO security systems in place and many of these homes have private settings
6) A nice marreid couple with 2 kids, boy 12/13 and daughter 9/10. The daughter and Mom both like teddy bears. Swing set backs onto open space.
7) A trendy couple who like neutral colors but are also unique in they also want to make bold statements.
One family who must sell and are in financial hardship.
9) Many Many homes that have big screen flat panel tvs
I could go on and on. My team used no image enhancement software for this review but we have seen the intricacies of life that that software reveals. Now we could cross reference the addresses, look at local directories, search title data and then cross reference that against facebook.
The evil of society can be corresponding on facebook with one of the children who have been revealed on your site all the while actually seeing the bedroom that child is sitting in.
That is the reality of the current portal model. Until the internet, every home sold, every child was protected and no one saw the inside of a families home without being accompanied by and Agent.
You don’t even require a privacy or copyright click through to gain access to your portal.
Now if you can tell me how your portal is safe and how you are protecting children please let me know. Of course if the public becomes aware of this your revenue streams are dead under your current format.
What a load of overly dramatic, hysterical, fear mongering BS.
You hit the nail on the head there max.
Couldn’t happen here could it??????
There’s probably a grain or two of truth in Lewis’s comments
There was a fairly well publicised case in nz a cple years back where the miscreant burglar admitted to the court that he did his “shopping and scoping” on realestate portals.
Tony, nobody said it couldn’t happen here.
Just the likely-hood of it happening in practice is slim. A dramatically worded theory though, sounds devastatingly and will appeal to some peoples senses.
But that’s the idea isn’t it….like Jenman with his brochures with crooks stealing your things through open inspections this is just a point of difference. Lewis is running with it to run to gain some misguided supporters.
There’s and so a chance you could get eaten by a shark when surfing, does that stop most people ? no.
Yes, there is a grain of truth to his comments but the chances are so slim that most will ignore.
edit…
There’s also a chance you could get eaten by a shark when surfing, does that stop most people ? no.
Lewis,
On the privacy issue you love ranting on about so much. what about the interior of homes which are advertised in newspapers, glossy magazines, brochures and in the agent’s windows? How are do you protect the kids then? All of this non internet advertising to attract buyers was done well before the internet and is still done now. What a conundrum hey? The message you are trying convey is purely self serving and sensationalist! Never have i seen such a load of BS on a computer screen!
You also stated previously in Canada that agents pay for the sellers advertising. These portals you depise so much have saved your industry millions of dollars on newspaper ads over the past ten years and will continue to do so.
What you just don’t understand is that we now live in a world driven by time poor consumers who want information, services and goods 10 minutes ago! They are not going to be grilled in the hope of been judged a ‘qualifed buyer’ by your good self so they can see a photo of a homes interior. Instead, Generations X, Y and computer savvy Baby Boomer buyers will call a different agent and purchase a similar listing to yours and then list the home they currently own with your competior. They will do this because dealing with you it just too hard.
Lastly, in response to your riduculous comments in the last paragraph of your previous rant. don’t you think there would a public outcry and police investigations if what you stated has actually been a problem? stop scare mongering and get a grip man!
Prior to open unlimited access to the inside of sellers homes on the internet, NO ONE got to see inside without an agent. RESULT sooner or later every home sold! Today with the net and unlimited open access to the inside of homes the same RESULT sooner or later every home sells!
My clients, who are police officers (which I have a large number of), all will not allow the inside of their homes on the net and ALL think the general public is not only foolish but willingly putting their families at risk.
Don’t believe me ask the police to supply you with the number of pedophiles in your neighborhood.
I suspect you are not aware of female agents being attacked while showing vacant properties. It’s easy online to find an isolated vacant home listed with a female agent.
Scare mongering? The proof is found when a seller goes live on the net. Within 24 hours 2 or 3 moving companies call, offers from home stagers, offers to re-finance, etc, in the following 2 to 3 days, all with no supplying of that information other than portals.
Those who are complaining to my comments instead of supplying facts, I guess are the type of people who have no problem with Mark Zuckerburg or Google compiling a life long database of their children’s feelings, photos and actions with Zuckerburg owning the rights to that data. You can’t tell me you guys being net experts are that foolish.
People’s houses are not cars, or used stereo systems. They are their lives and when you look inside you gain a full inside knowledge into the intimate details of the family.
The answer is simple. A login site where the only way you get access is by getting a login code from an Agent. Everyone still gets access but in a regulated format but….I guess you couldn’t do an IPO on a site like that!
addition….If I have a buyer who really needs the information in 10 mins, I can’t rely on any portal even realtor.ca . Those buyers (actually all my buyers) receive push notifications for new listings within 5 mins of it going live on the agent mls system. My clients don’t wait 1 to 3 days for it to appear on any portal including realtor.ca .
I suspect a viral campaign enacted by REIA on this very serious issue, backed by support by the police forces nation wide would prove whether my comments are ridiculous or not. I believe your privacy commissioner is required by law to investigate claims like this as well.
I really think Agents in Australia need to take action. I wonder the value an IPO would net for a site that controlled by Agents.
Getting back to the subject of this post. Angus is right when he states that future cash flow from Port plus and Console plus borrowed capital of $5m will fund the operations.
However my information indicates that the major cash flow will come from pay per lead from agents. This will be interesting in the Australian Market place as no other portal is operating as pay per lead.
Personally I think this will be accepted by agents as it will directly connect their costs to opportunity. It will however need agents to set their offices up so that “managing their leads program” will become ultra important.
$5m may be enough to increase the portal’s exposure to the Australian public- but they will still need a hell of a lot of work to be done on functionality of their site.
In all prospects exists for success- but the appointment and announcement of a high profile respected CEO, will be essential to the gaining of Agent content.
Good luck.
That Vic will be in the execution.
To get leads they need traffic and after three years only sub 200k ubs aint going to generate many leads.
Very interested in the defintion of a lead.
What does your 35.00 get you
an email,that aint much of a lead
Interestingly the pay per lead model in the real estate space has been dramatically unsuccessful where executed. Propertyindex in the UK struggles, marketleader in the US similarly and so on.
The challenges are collections, disagreement about what is / is not a lead, the constant having to pay for traffic etc …
Not a model i would be adopting
Simon Baker
Good feedback Simon. Had no idea of the pay per lead model outcomes overseas, but will be interesting to see how onthehouse go about it.
Have they tried to head hunt you yet:) I think that is their weakness – a good CEO.
The Pay per Lead system does have a model that works for both Lead Generator and the Agent but it is a specific model that is not openly used by LG companies because it relies on a monthly subscription where leads are paid on a month by month basis at rates lower than Market Leader is charging.
The commissions in North America can be substantial for one individual sale so they are able to still find Agents willing to participate in their current programs.
Market Leader relies on House Values and Just Listed dot coms to get the actual leads and then charge ppl which is why the model is failing. They attempted national campaigns which gained the attention of early adopters but overall the negativity associated with this model means it is doomed to failure.
Looks like onthehouse has crashed and burned as an IPO – shares down nearly 25% since listing just over a week ago.
The only ones to make money out of this are the owners of Portplus and Console
What is that saying about a fool and their money are soon parted?
Are we able to sue ‘onthehouse when they are under valuing our property by over $100,000?
We have several Real Estate quotes to prove this.
The google map ‘onthehouse’ uses does not even show our house. Ours is a double storey not a single story house.
I would also like to know if onthehouse can legally put up false photos, details and value of properties, (onthehouse did this to my properties and many other properties in my area).
I agree with the previous posts that their sole purpose is to collect marketing information and A LOT of your personal details. Have a look at their privacy policies, disclaimers and bottom notes… and also there has been some interesting announcements on the stock market about a recent partnership with Suncorp- worth a read to guess what was going on in the background with your data… http://www.asx.com.au/asx/research/companyInfo.do?by=asxCode&asxCode=OTH –
Class action might be the way to go…. The company’s details are on the same link. Good luck and keep us posted.