What an interesting week in real Estate this week, as we got to meet our new DOMAIN Real Estate Accounts Rep for the Wide Bay Region – Jay Arthur. Poor Jay had his work cut out for him. Although DOMAIN has been leading the way in southern states of Australia, it’s rival realestate.com was & is in truth to be told, owning the Queensland market currently.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that this would come from realestate.com being so good at their jobs, as they are not!
The realestate.com local rep is appalling, customer service in general disgraceful & hugely over priced, with offices paying over $1000 – $5000 a month or more in some cases, just for the privilege of advertising with them. Remember this is only a part of an agencies advertising budget a month for their clients.
So why do we all use them….Well as Jay was to find out, basically, DOMAIN had been letting down all the real estate agencies in Queensland. They let this bully of an advertising company take over with no genuine competition. Suddenly, (due to who DOMAIN decided to give their QLD contract to to service), there was no competition, & like a pig that can not stop feeding, realestate.com.au, consumed the market.
Markets need competition to keep them honest & DOMAIN soon realised that their past decisions had allowed their biggest competitor to win the market by a landslide!
When DOMAIN did not step up to the plate creating the online presence required to compete, vendors & buyers became educated to think only realestate.com. for their search engine. The agents then have had no choice but to fulfil the advertising requests of their clients, to;
- Fit the expensive realestate.com bill themselves or
- Pass it on to the consumer.
After droughts that have reached the coast, a GFC & two floods, selling property has been increasingly hard on some agencies. Think what you will of real estate agents, but in their defence, most agents/agencies don’t get paid weekly only by the commission from sales they earn, especially those who don’t have a rent roll to fall back on.
You would think that this is when a business like realestate.com who charge excessively these agents/agencies & therefore in many cases the vendors who have to endure the fees, would step up to the plate & support the community of real estate agents who they make their millions off year after year. They could of easily afforded for a period of time to reduce their fees or help create demand through their advertising power in those affected areas, helping them get back on their feet…Apparently I live in dream land.
Realestate.com should now tread carefully, as we as a group of agents in Queensland have had enough.
I say bring it on, let the war begin, It will be interesting to see what DOMAIN will do to take back or at least equal the market share with realestate.com. I’m told that within six – twelve months we will all see some significant changes.
WELCOME back DOMAIN & local rep Jay Arthur!!
LET”S GET SOME MUCH NEEDED BUSINESS DONE