The real estate sector is hitting back at the two major players in the online real estate market, realestate.com.au and domain. Competition has emerged in two separate announcements this week, from the Real Estate Institute of Queensland and the Certified Practicing Real Estate Agents. Touting REIQ.com.au and Roomeo respectively, the two organisations are clearly out to break the duopoly.
Owned by media giants News Limited and Fairfax, their aggressive pricing and deep reach into the consumer’s pocket via smartphones have taken a large slice of the margin traditionally enjoyed by your friendly, local agent.
“We know how much it costs to run these services because you can buy an ad on domain in Brisbane, or realestate.com.au for about one hundredth of the price they charge in their home cities,” one agent told Westender.
The REIQ site has a significant head start on Roomeo which is still in start up mode and not available to the public.REIQ features over 70 listings in West End alone. Roomeo probably has the marketing edge, though. It is a bit hard to imagine anyone crooning “REIQ, REIQ, where art thou, REIQ.”
<caption>Local tyro Leo Tsimpikas is top of the pops at REIQ