PropertyLook has been hailed as 'the industry's own commercial property portal'. Of the 75-plus real estate sites in Australia, few list commercial property. Joe Parkes reports on PropertyLook's great opportunity
Australia's four major commercial real estate firms - CB Richard Ellis, Colliers Jardine, Jones Lang LaSalle and Knight Frank – have launched PropertyLook, “the only commercial property internet site developed and financially backed by key players in the industry”, according to Andrew Grill, general manager.
With such a blue-chip line-up, the site’s membership is restricted to “registered property agents in Australia or New Zealand”. That way, said Grill, the site “always complements the professional expertise currently provided by agents”.
“When our shareholders got together to plan its development, they insisted that PropertyLook be operated and financially backed by property industry players,” he explained.
He said the site is “the ultimate tool for owners, tenants and investors because it is already the biggest and most comprehensive commercial property site in Australia and New Zealand”.
Limited success?
Similar sites exist in several countries, many operated
by third-party providers, and early reports suggest that
most have enjoyed limited success.
In the United States, a number of major real estate sites have either collapsed or suffered hard times. PropertyLook's owners, however, say they are confident of breaking even early - due to their focus on commercial rather than residential property.
So what kind of opposition - if any – might the new site face in the Australian property market? As an online commercial property specialist, the site is relatively isolated. However, several private property sites are eyeing the commercial market.
Our own search turned up 75 estate agencies, pictorial guides, newspaper-based information services and other real estate players doing business on the web.
The best example, perhaps, is realestate.com.au, that bills itself as providing “internet and technology services to the real estate industry, online property listings and related services to the Australian public”.
Established in February 1995, the company claims to have experienced “significant growth” since its formation and that its web site, www.realestate.com.au, “is the leading real estate site in Australia as measured by independent internet researchers”, such as Hitwise, Red Sheriff and Top100.
Top sites
The site is consistently ranked as one of Australia's 20
most visited web sites exclusively endorsed by the Real
Estate Institute of New South Wales and the Real Estate
Institute of Tasmania.
The site contains an “agents only” section, exclusively for the use of real estate agents, where it invites agents who are not yet a registered member of realestate.com.au to “consider the benefits of having your property listings appear on Australia's most popular real estate internet site”.
Others include Real Estate Australia Online (reao.com.au), Impact Real Estate, specialising in Surfer's Paradise and the Gold Coast, and eco.com.au, which deals almost exclusively with the buying, selling, designing and building of ecologically sound properties which help people “live in a more sustainable way”.
“We want to work with people who are making a start in examining the issues about how we live in this world, what we use and why, and how we can share this planet with all its diverse beings”, the site's mission statement declares.
Leading the way?
Meanwhile, real estate sites proliferate in other states
– but only a few have stepped into the commercial
market.
Acton Consolidated Real Estate Services claims “to lead the way in selling, auction and management of real estate in Perth, Western Australia,” presumably with some competition from Perth's Advanced Virtual Reality Real Estate site and a variety of other, similar sites in the West including Albanyis.com.au, specialising in land sales at Albany and Perth's Mark Franklyn and Associates.
Queensland is well endowed with online real estate services such as Boltons Real Estate in Maryborough, Hervey Bay, Wide Bay and Fraser Island; Century 21's Doug Disher Real Estate in Brisbane's Western Suburbs; City View Estate in Cairns; Lowing Real Estate “one of the leading industrial agents specialising in the Gold Coast” and Mission Beach Real Estate, “nestled in the rainforest of Tropical North Queensland, near Dunk and Hinchinbrook Islands”.
Real estate cauldron
The cauldron of Australian real estate, Sydney, is well
represented by online agencies such as housecall.com.au
at suburban Putney which claims its web site has been
“designed with meticulous care [because] the founding
directors themselves bought real estate in 1997 and were
not satisfied with existing real estate websites”.
Others include Bawdons Industrial Real Estate in the Western Suburbs, Di Jones, which bills itself as offering “Premier Sydney Real Estate” and industrial specialists Glass Property Consultants focussing on Sydney's North. Outside Sydney, regional agency sites include L J Hooker at Newcastle and BayWeb, which, among other things, lists real estate among the lotus eaters of Byron Bay.
Victoria, too, has no shortage of online real estate agencies. Many, however, have a national focus and some specialise in offering Australian real estate to overseas buyers. Novak Tonkin specialises in property investment from abroad and offers its own site links to the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Agency sites with a country-wide approach include the Australian Property Web offering “thousands of listings for sale/lease, market statistics, tourist information and contact details; RealBiz Internet, “the only independent web Real Estate and Business guide to properties throughout Australia”; Knight Frank, which offers “a comprehensive listing of prime commercial, industrial, retail and investment properties throughout Australia and New Zealand”; Global Property Link, which “links Australia's great Real Estate agencies” for properties in Queensland and New South Wales; and the Ray White Web where “you can search for properties throughout Australasia and South East Asia”.
5,500 listings
And yet, for all these sites, PropertyLook stands out as
the only one with a clear mission to blaze the
commercial property trail. The site says it has 5, 500
listings covering 11.1 million square metres in property
- about twice that offered by its nearest competitor. It
also offers direct on--line access to more than 3,000
property professionals.
Members pay a monthly fee and upwards of $A200 (about US$102) for a basic listing.
“PropertyLook.com.au has been set up as a cost
effective and targeted advertising medium that well and
truly extends the current marketing mix available for
clients' campaigns,” Grill said. He sees potential for
the portal to include add-on services such as
fitting-out and furniture removal.