In response to our piece Online real estate wars heat up CPREA chairman Geoff Baldwin wrote to us to clarify his position.
As Chairman of www.CPREA.com.au we are certainly not interested in a “war” as such, with REA or anyone.
Our focus is on
- Lifting the professionalism, education and public standing of people in our industry and
- On providing a national “genuinely” industry owned real estate portal that provides competition and price moderation for our sellers who pay for marketing and for agents.
We acknowledge that there are other sites being established and we encourage them to push on and we are in no way threatened by competition, in fact we welcome it. We desperately need alternatives to the current duopoly (or in many area, monopoly) and, in the long run, the industry and the public will choose which sites to support.
Thanks Geoff and yes, we lizards of the press do tend to use excitable language to get people to turn the page or, more importantly, hang on long enough to read the words written on it.
On reviewing the original press release from the CPREA the heading does seem to make you guilty of the same crime. Priorities amiss in online cost war
Perhaps this is the hallmark of a new era when real estate agents will use temperate language to downplay the features of the property they want to sell. “Modest home on noisy street. Not much parking. Anyone?”