Earlier this year we took our first look at the Malaysian property portal market.  Its now time to take another more thorough look at the top 10 players in the market.

What the numbers show is that iProperty.com.my is the clear leader in the Malaysian market.  Its leadership position is similar to that of realestate.com.au in Australia and rightmove.co.uk in the UK where there is a large gap to the second place player.

While we look at the rankings of the top 10 players through a number of metrics below, total time on site is probably the single best way to determine leadership at it combinations traffic and engagement. Total time on site takes into account visits (a combination of unique visitors and frequency) as well as what they do on the site once they are there – in this case average session duration.

On this measure we see that iProperty.com.my accounts for 75% of the total mins spent looking at property across the top 10 sites.  Homeguru.com.my is in second place just slightly ahead of propwall.com.my with both having around 8% of the total mins each.  The other iProperty Group site, thinkproperty.com.my, is in 4th place with 3% of the total minutes.

All numbers in this document are prepared using Google Ad Planner’s April 2012 numbers.

Traffic

iProperty.com.my clearly leads when looking at unique users visiting the sites.  iProperty.com.my is nearly three times the site of the second placed homeguru.com.my and  over five times the size of third placed prop wall.my.  In fact iProperty.com.my is has more unique users than the next six sites combined.

When looking at visits to the top 10 sites, iProperty.com.my clearly the leader attracting 62% of the visits to the top 10 Malaysian property portals.  With over 5x the visits of second place homeguru.com.my, it is clear to see why iProperty.com.my ranked 3rd in on the world’s most dominant portals list.

Interestingly, if we look at the comparison between February and April this year, traffic is coalescing around iproperty.com.my and to a lesser extent homeguru.com.my.  Traffic to these two sites increased over the two month period with the market leader growing faster than the number 2 player.

When looking at frequency of visits to the sites there are some interesting change.  iProperty.com.my continues to lead with a healthy 4.3 visits per user per month.  However, homeguru.com.my drops to 5th place with half the frequency suggesting that visitors to the site are not as engaged as with other sites.  Also it is interesting to note that propwall.my, a combination of listings and editorial content, jumps to second place.  Third place goes to iProperty.com.my’s sister site, thinkproperty.com.my.

Engagement

The second measure of success is the level of engagement a site has with its users.  This is best viewed through page impression, average page impressions per visit and average session duration.

Once again we see that iProperty.com.my accounts for 70% of all page impressions consumed by visitors to the top 10 sites.  In fact this is more than the next 9 combined.  iProperty.com.my had 6.5x the number of page impressions when compared to the second placed site – propwall.com.my.

When looking at trends, we can see that both iproperty.com.my and homeguru.com.my increased page impressions by a similar percentage over the period February through April this year while propwall.com.my suffered a 8% drop.

When looking at the page impressions per visit, propwall.com.my narrowly pipped iproperty.com.my with the other iProperty Group site, thinkproperty.com.my, taking third place.  The two Property Guru Group sites, homeguru.com.my and fullhouse.com.my took 4th and 5th place.  Clearly, in propwall.com.my’s case the high level of editorial content has lead to visitors of the site viewing a high number of pages.

Finally, when looking at the average time on site we can see that due to the high volume of listings content on the iproperty.com.my site, visitors are spending 50% longer on the site during each visit than the second placed site propwall.com.au and thinkproperty.com.my.

Nestoria Australia has tripled traffic over the last 6 months.  Between September 2011 and March 2012, visits* to the site increased from 39,000 per month to just under 120,000.   This strong growth has been driven by good search engine optimisation of the site and stronger brand recognition.

Nestoria Australia is a joint venture between Lokku in the UK and Classified Ad Ventures in Australia.  The site provides portals and franchise groups with traffic on a cost per click basis where the cost per click is significantly less than Google.

Simon Baker, the Chairman of Classified Ad Ventures commented: “we are very pleased with the growth of Nestoria Australia. We have been able to provide our customers with high quality traffic at low cost. With a CPC rate from as little as 15c per click, we are providing our portal and franchise group partners with a high value, low cost way of driving quality traffic to their sites.”

Ed Freyfogle, the founder of Lokku (Nestoria) will be presenting at the Property Portal Watch Workshop in San Francisco on the 31st July. Click here for more information on the workshop.

* Source: Google Analytics

Disclosure: Classified Ad Ventures is the publisher of Property Portal Watch

One of the key strategic priorities for any property portal is generating strong traffic to the site.  Of course there are many ways of doing that however CPC is one that is favoured by many.  Traditionally portals have spent on Google to capture clicks.  More and more they are adding Facebook to the advertising mix.  However, while Facebook is the poster boy for the social media movement, does it actually deliver results to the advertiser?

A global survey undertaken by leading independent digital marketing agency, Greenlight, reveals 30% of people ‘strongly distrust’ Facebook with their personal data whilst 44% say they would ‘never’ click on Facebook sponsored ads, all of which indicates Facebook’s advertising programme has an upward struggle.

Greenlight’s global “Search & Social Survey (2011-2012)” asked 500 people – from students, law enforcement professionals, medical staff, accountants, lawyers to the unemployed, how they engage with online advertising, search engines, and social networks, in order to glean insight into how consumers engage with marketers today, and to formulate views on what the future might hold.

Facebook the third most popular website after Google and YouTube

As expected, 50% of respondents to Greenlight’s survey said they use Facebook for social engagement, sharing photos, and catching up with friends and family.

Facebook ranked as the third most popular website (after Google and YouTube) when asked ‘How regularly do you use the following websites/services?’. It ranked second when asked ‘Which of the following do you use on your mobile phone?’, with roughly 30% of those surveyed saying they use Facebook on their mobiles and tablets.

“Facebook’s popularity doesn’t come as a surprise. However, with over 30% of respondents saying they ‘strongly distrust’ Facebook with their personal data, Facebook’s advertising programme has an upward struggle,” says Hannah Kimuyu, director of paid media at Greenlight.  “Facebook’s advertising programme allows brands to connect with more than 800 million potential customers, through targeting their age, gender, location and interests, in other words – personal data.”

How much do you trust the following companies/brands with your personal data?

Source: Greenlight

Should brands bother with Facebook advertising?

Asked ‘Do you click on advertisements or sponsored listings in Facebook’, just 3% of respondents answered with regularly and 10% often. The alarming response was the 44% that answered never.

Yet, does this reflect an advertiser’s point of view?

“For Greenlight and many other agencies and brands, advertising on Facebook has become part of the ‘usual mix’, says Kimuyu. We specifically saw our Facebook investment (client media spend) overtake both Yahoo and Bing collectively at the start of 2011, hinting the channel has constant growth and is delivering a strong enough return to invest more.”

Do you click on advertisements or sponsored listings in Facebook?

Source: Greenlight

A Global Facebook Advertising Report compiled by TBG Digital in Q2 2011, examined 200 billion impressions across hundreds of advertisers in 21 markets. The study revealed that retail delivered the highest click through rate (CTR) when compared to other sectors.  Furthermore, retail saw the largest increase in growth, going from being non-existent in Q3 2010 to showing steady growth by Q2 of 2011 (a 36% increase).

“Pulling this study back to Greenlight’s client base, we have seen similar performance levels, especially with retail getting more from Facebook.  On average a CTR of 0.5% – 0.8% is considered positive, however retail brands typically achieve 0.8% – 1.0%.”

Kimuyu points out that similarly to Google’s Display Network (GDN), Facebook has spent the last 12 months developing its advertising programme, slowly moving from offering just branded advertising (Fan Acquisitions) to becoming a serious direct acquisition channel.  “Many of the developments are appealing to retail brands, especially with retail being the most active in the space.  Most recently we have seen one high street retailer achieve a 15% higher average basket value and a 20% increase in conversion rates on Facebook, when compared to its Search activity.”

So when is Facebook most effective?

The most popular and effective ad format is the Sponsored Story. The format delivers, on average, a 32% decrease in cost per acquisitions (sales) and an increase in CTR (engagement).

“When running both the traditional ad format alongside a sponsored story format, we tend to see at least a 30% increase in conversion rates, again with retail leading across the sectors,” says Kimuyu.

Kimuyu concludes:

“Although 44% say they would ‘never’ click on advertisements or sponsored listings in Facebook, it is interesting to see that those who do find the targeting effective and engaging.  Moreover, given the positive growth figures, we at Greenlight predict that more of us will be advertising and hopefully ‘clicking’ on an advertisement or a sponsored listing on Facebook this year.

So who is Greenlight?

Greenlight is a leading independent digital marketing agency, providing Search and Social Media services. With over 100 blue-chip clients including Santander, New Look, Sky and ghd, Greenlight is a leader in the digital marketing space, and is recognized worldwide for its commitment to delivering record ROI for its clients and investing in the future.

Greenlight is considered the premier thought leader in the sector, publishing widely read industry reports, original research, speaking at trade events, and delivering a highly respected digital marketing training programme via the Greenlight Academy. Founded in 2001, Greenlight is headquartered in London, with offices in New York. www.greenlightdigital.com

iProperty Group, ASX (IPP), has launched its new commercial property website, CommercialAsia.com, to assist Australian property owners and agents connect with the growing number of Asian investors keen to enter the Australian property.

Investors from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and China are turning to the Australian commercial property market to combat lower local interest rate returns and the threat of continued global economic instability, says new property portal, CommercialAsia.com.

“Australia’s steady economy and commercial property sector, particularly in those areas connected with the resources boom, offers Asian investors attractive yields and a ‘safe haven’ to preserve and grow their wealth,” says Corey Weekes, CommercialAsia.com’s National Sales Manager for Australia and New Zealand.

“Region-wide cooling measures for property investment by Asian governments are also driving many Asian investors to explore offshore options like Australia,” says Mr Weekes.

Offshore-based institutions and private investors accounted for 37 per cent of Australia’s commercial sale transactions in 2011^. CommercialAsia.com provides property investors across Asia-Pacific with a simple way to browse commercial and industrial properties for sale or lease.

CommercialAsia.com draws on the iProperty Group’s existing network of property portals across Asia, which attracts 3.5 million unique visitors per month and have over 25,000 property agent customers.

To date, the site has more than 50,000 commercial and industrial properties listed for sale and lease by over 7,000 agents; including 1,000 Australian commercial properties listed from agents including Knight Frank and Burgess Rawson.

“CommercialAsia.com provides foreign investors with a tool to search commercial property to buy or lease in Australia and vice-versa,” says Mr Weekes.

John Bowie Wilson, City Sales Director with Knight Frank, says the number of offshore investors interested in the Australian commercial property sector is increasing on a daily basis.

“The Asian investor market is more active than I’ve ever seen it before,” says Mr Bowie Wilson who has worked in the sector for fifteen years.

“As prices rise in Singapore and Hong Kong awaits a currency correction against the US dollar; investors are seeking ‘safe havens’ like Australia to provide them with secure compound growth investment options.

“Asian investors are typically capital-rich and have a good understanding of the requirements when investing in Australian property,” says Mr Bowie Wilson.

Mr Weekes notes that the foreign investors play a vital role in holding up Australian commercial property values.

“The recent drop in interest rates is helping local private and institutional investors to return to commercial property investments, however it is still a challenge for many domestic investors to raise capital,” says Mr Weekes.

Asia-Pacific investors can search CommercialAsia.com for office, retail, hotel and industrial properties and land by State or Territory, as well as by size and price.

The site uses unique geo-targeting to determine the most appropriate language for the user and search results are available in six different currencies.

“The introduction of CommercialAsia.com will add a real point of difference by allowing agents like us to access groups who won’t have considered Australian commercial property before and to start those initial conversations,” concludes Mr Bowie Wilson.

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The world has become smaller, thanks to the Internet. PropertyPortalWatch has reported on the latest trend of property portals around the globe catering to foreign investors. Among the many, there is Australian-based TheHomePage.com.au offering a Chinese-language listing category on its website.

The US property portal, Real-Buzz, which has expanded to over 70 markets, offering properties in the US to foreign investors, and making it possible for users to search for properties in other parts of the world.

Another Australian site, gifang.com, which promotes houses, apartments and land in Melbourne, including the south-east suburbs, to 315 cities in China.

Greek portal GreekPropertyExchange.com, has even gone as far as launching a reality-style TV show aimed at foreign investors who are looking to buy property in Greece.

With most real estate portals jumping on the apps bandwagon, it comes as a bit of a surprise to read that Kyero.com has opted to not launch a mobile app. Instead they announced that they have just signed a contract to develop a mobile-friendly version of the Kyero website.

Development is expected to begin in June of this year and, the company hopes that with a bit of luck and a following wind, users will be able to see the Kyero site on their smart phones before the end of that month.

The decision against building a mobile app was made, because of the need to support a variety of platforms and the somewhat expensive and difficult endeavour.

Instead the company states that they have been developing a mobile-friendly ‘responsive’ HTML5 site that shows up well on all mobile devices.

Development of the property search, results and property page functionality is first up on their list to tackle; the mobile-friendly site will be available in all of the main site’s languages. After which, they will examine the data and decide what functionality to move onto next.

The below are some screenshots and mockups indicating what the mobile-friendly site should look like when finally finished.

In April we reported that, Real-Buzz made its presence known in the much coveted top 10 results to searches for real estate in major US cities on the international versions of Google, Bing and Yahoo, after only a few months since its launch.

Now the Real-Buzz.com has announced that it has expanded its global property search to more than 70 countries worldwide including the MLS listings of Mexico and Costa Rica as well.

The Real-Buzz.com portal combines the latest in social media features and a fully multilingual platform to create the leading global information exchange for real estate.

“Cross-border real estate investment is a driving force in real estate markets globally. Although many buyers are coming to invest in the US, there is a growing trend for affluent Baby Boomers to buy properties south of the border for vacation and retirement.

“Real estate professionals in every country are seeking efficient marketing channels to reach buyers who are searching across borders, often all cash buyers at the higher end of the property market,” said Janet Choynowski, CEO of the Real Buzz Immobel Group.

“Our members truly appreciate the importance of International buyers in Mexico and we welcome Real-Buzz.com as a vital marketing channel for our members to effectively reach buyers from all over the world,” said Guadalupe Duran, President of FIABCI Mexico and international director of AMPI, the Mexico National Association of Real Estate Professionals.

Aleyda Bonilla, president of the National Costa Rica MLS CCCBR said, “Global marketing exposure is crucial for our members and we are thrilled to provide them with this unique opportunity to have their listings translated and show all over the world on Real-Buzz.com.”

“These days globalization is at the top of the “wish” list for every major franchise and brokerage group because they want to attract and retain top producing agents… and those agents need global marketing in order to win trophy listings,” Choynowski said.

Real-Buzz.com’s entire search and all property details are professionally translated into their own preferred language, among them Chinese, which is the fastest growing language on the Internet, and the Chinese are also enthusiastic buyers of international real estate.

It is now predicted that Chinese buyers alone will purchase US$50 billion of overseas property in 2012, more than US$40 of that outside the United States, so attracting international buyers is important for real estate professionals all over the world. Real-Buzz.com displays the listings from the US and more than 70 countries in both Mandarin and Cantonese,” Choynowski noted.

When international viewers search for property on their local Google or other leading search engines using common search terms like “house for sale” or “real estate” in their own languages, Real-Buzz.com holds top positions for popular cities including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, Sarasota, Orlando, Las Vegas, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

“For sellers in the United States, the International visibility Real-Buzz.com provides is important because foreign buyers spent $82 billion last year on US residential real estate.

“International buyer activity increased about 20% over the previous year, making home sales to foreign buyers one of the few bright spots in our real estate market,” Choynowski said.

This week sees the return of property portal Zoopla.co.uk to the small screen. The latest campaign not only includes national TV but also a significant national radio campaign as well as the continued presence of hundreds of Zoopla-branded taxis across the capital.

Following the same theme as previous campaigns, the marketing is focussed on ‘smarter property search’ and the tools that Zoopla provides to help consumers both find their next home and make better-informed property decisions.

Here is a TV ad from last year’s campaign.

The campaigns to date have clearly worked well as Zoopla continues to grow its market share and audience faster than any other property portal in the UK. And agents advertising on Zoopla continue to benefit from the significant marketing investment being put behind the Zoopla brand that serves to deliver a wider audience and more enquiries for their properties.

This latest advertising investment from Zoopla comes just weeks after The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) cleared its proposed merger with Digital Property Group which is expected to complete within the next few weeks.

Today Zillow announced the launch of its Partnership Platform, designed to help Zillow, multiple listing services and brokers work together to display accurate, complete and timely listing information.

The Zillow Partnership Platform outlines Zillow’s commitment to work with its real estate industry partners to reduce the costs and time associated with listings management; and provide the best source of listing data to agents, home owners and home shoppers.

Under the Zillow Partnership Platform, Zillow’s pledges include:

• Update active listings and remove stale information as frequently as the MLS or broker allows.
• Always show the listing broker, listing agent and the listing source.
• Never re-syndicate, redistribute or sub-license listings without permission.
• Never reuse listing data entrusted to one Zillow business to support another Zillow business.
• Allow MLSs and brokers to choose Zillow’s listings data source.
• Honor all intellectual property rights.

“Zillow is committed to partnering with MLSs and brokers to get reliable and timely information to its more than 32 million unique users each month,” said Bob Bemis, vice president of industry relations at Zillow. “We have a common goal to provide accurate listings for the benefit of agents and consumers.”

Starting today, the Zillow Partnership Platform applies to all renewal and future MLS and broker contracts. Each partner will have a dedicated Zillow account executive to address concerns and quickly solve problems.

Montreal-based Sensopia Inc. software publisher focused on Reality Capture, announced that MagicPlan just reached the monumental 2 million downloads mark.

On the same day of the announcement, the company also released MagicPlan 2.1, featuring a new Facebook and Twitter integration to share floor plans via a simple click of the mouse.

Sensopia is in a unique partnership with Dutch company and worldwide leader of 2D/3D floor plan web editing, Floorplanner. This union is sure to change the way people create and use floor plans.

With the release of MagicPlan 2.0 capturing floor plans has become extremely easy. The Floorplanner integration now provides a complete solution from floor plan creation to web editing and all the way to 3D visualisation.

MagicPlan users can have an account where they can manage their floor plans, and thanks to Floorplanner, they can also modify these plans, create presentations or embed the plans into a web site, with great ease.

Each Floorplanner has also the option to create his/her floor plans with MagicPlan and forward them to Floorplanner directly form within MagicPlan. No measuring or drawing is required and the process takes only a few minutes to accomplish, with floor plans created and available within Floorplanner for additional editing, if needed.

“MagicPlan captures the shape, measures and assembles rooms using popular devices such as Smartphones or tablets. However a lot of our customers needed to go a step further. Modifying and creating great visualization of a plan came on top of our customers’ requirements. Our pasrtnership with Floorplanner is the best possilbe response,” said Pierre Gaubil, CEO of Sensopia.

“Now our users can benefit from years of development. They can join the millions of Floorplanner users who have elected Floorplanner as the best in class floor plan web editing tool,” concluded Gaubil.

Jeroen Bekkers, CEO of Floorplanner said: “Creating a floor plan from scratch has always been a challenge. Now instead of spending countless hours measuring and drawing, our custormers can produce their floor plans just by taking pictures. Then with a simple click, they sned their MagicPlan floor plan to Floorplanner.”

“Once in Floorplanner everything becomes possilbe, removing walls, adding furniture, creating great images or embedding floor plans in a website.”

“MagicPlan is a real enabler that removes all the burdens associated with capturing a floor plan,” concluded Bekkers.

MagicPlan and Floorplanner offer a first floor plan for free to their users. After the initial plan, a subscription is necessary.

An example of a floor plan generated with MagicPlan and edited with Floorplanner.

Trulia announced its strategic alliance with Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. (BAREIS MLS®) to directly syndicate the listings of its 8,000 members to Trulia. This affiliation promises to provide consumers with the most accurate information on homes for sale in five Northern San Francisco Bay Area counties including Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Sonoma and Solano.

With the addition of BAREIS MLS®, the majority of the MLSs in the Bay Area are now working with Trulia. The company already receives direct feeds from MLSListings, Bay East and Contra Costa MLS, meaning Bay Area homebuyers can have an extremely high degree of confidence that the data they see on Trulia is correct. As part of its alliance with Trulia, BAREIS will also participate in the Trulia Direct Reference program, under which Trulia notifies listing agents and brokers about any discrepancies between the data provided by the MLS and information from other syndicators.

Listings from BAREIS MLS® will now be seen by the more than 23 million* serious home-buyers and sellers coming to Trulia each month to get the inside scoop on real estate they can’t find anywhere else. BAREIS MLS® will syndicate all of its listings unless the listing is not approved for the internet.

“Our membership is dedicated to providing the most accurate data on the internet to buyers and sellers working with the real estate professionals in our region,” said Jim Branscombe, President and CEO of BAREIS MLS®.  “There is an explosion of data and a great deal of that information is not accurate or kept up to date. Building strategic alliances with major real estate portals like Trulia will ensure the best data is available to the public and support the efforts of our real estate professionals to list and sell property. BAREIS MLS® has operated its own public site for 14 years, and this relationship we are forging with Trulia is similar to the relationships we have with other public internet sites we have worked with in that we are providing all active listing data approved for internet display.”

“By syndicating listings for its members, BAREIS MLS® will ensure that it provides an extremely high level of data accuracy. This will help its members connect with more buyers and sellers to close more transactions,” said Mark Weiss, Trulia Director of Business Development. “BAREIS MLS® understands that connecting Trulia’s audience with the most up to date and accurate information provides its real estate professionals with the best opportunity to close deals.”

As part of the agreement, Trulia will abide by the guidelines established by the Trulia Data Pledge for listing syndication that launched in January 2012.