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Brendan Wong
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) has given its listings portal a million-dollar upgrade in response to demand from agents for more options in the online listing space.
REIQ CEO Anton Kardash said reiq.com was upgraded after extensive research found many consumers and agents wanted better online property search options.
“It’s no secret that people today head online first when searching for property,” he said.
“In fact, according to REIQ research, it is estimated a vast majority of properties are viewed, judged and decided upon online before a buyer or renter even steps foot on the premises.
“That’s why we’ve invested in making reiq.com a better experience for property hunters, with bigger pictures, more property details, easy navigation and access to the REIQ’s wealth of market knowledge."
Reiq.com already boasts nearly 100,000 listings from thousands of Queensland real estate agents, who must be registered members of the REIQ.
The portal will come as good news for Queensland agents seeking an alternative portal to major listing portals.
This annoucenment comes just days after a recent Real Estate Business Half-Yearly Sentiment Survey revealed that more than 70 per cent of agents feel they have no choice but to advertise on major portal sites to stay competitive in the market.
The survey also confirmed the dominance of realestate.com.au in the marketplace, with 83.2 per cent of the 287 respondents saying it was the portal they used most to list properties.
REA Group, the owners of realestate.com.au, recently revealed that its revenue had grown 21 per cent to $336.5 million and that its net profit was $109.7 million, a 26 per cent jump from last year.
Mr Kardash said reiq.com would give REIQ-accredited agencies another way to promote their properties.
“With the unveiling of our new-look website also being supported by a state-wide television advertising campaign launching this Sunday, we expect to see a growing number of Queensland property hunters head to the site,” he said.
But according to Geoff Baldwin, managing director of RE/MAX WA there still needs to be an industry portal.
"REIQ are trying to get traction with their site. REIWA [Real Estate Institute of Western Australia] have a great state site, as well as do some of the other Institutes," he wrote on Real Estate Business' LinkedIn page.
"The absolute crime and disgrace is that our institutes haven't got together years ago under the REIA [Real Estate Institute of Australia] to establish our own national site. What is the bigger shame is that we, the members, haven't demanded it. Between all of our state and territory institute sites we hold 90 per cent of the listings in Australia and with a little cooperation between them could easily combine those into a national agent owned site to compete with REA.
"The problem is that each of our state institutes has signed off on third party agreements with newspapers, other websites, sponsors, etc. that when combined with a huge dose of shortsightedness now precludes them properly representing their members."
