Disclaimer: This information is intended to be of a general nature. Please do not rely on any of the content as being a professional tax or legal opinion and seek your own independent advice.

Australia’s largest real estate web site has the lion’s share of the market, reporting a whopping $220 million full year profit. Agents and their clients, landlords and vendors, have gifted them this profit because web site success is adjudged on how many eye-balls view the site.

In Western Australia, REIWA’s member owned web site: http://www.reiwa.com ranks second, carrying about a third of the traffic. http://www.reiwa.com is owned by member agents and being a “not-for-profit” organisation, the cost to sellers whose properties appear on the site is less than the leading site.

The largest player has their eye on the money. Their fees continue to rise each year and agents jostle to spend enough to be noticed but not too much to send them broke.

Of course, sellers want their properties to appear prominently on the top ranking real estate web site and are usually happy to pay for it. After all, recent statistics show that almost 80 per cent of all buyers first see properties they purchase in the on-line space. But for buyer and tenants that don’t wish to consider house & land packages or want to deal with professional agents, http://www.reiwa.com is the place for you.

Nowadays, the web is filled with portals promoting services that “find the best agent near you”. When selling, property owners call in local agents in order to assess which agent they believe will deliver them the service and result they want. Many of these sellers will initially look on-line to assess which agents they ought to call in. In this process it is tempting for future vendors to fill out an on-line form which the web site provider then forwards to subscriber agents inviting them to compete for the listing.

The problem here is that successful agents (usually the best ones) don’t need to use these web sites to get business. Why would they? The best agents can get business on their merit and are understandably reluctant to hand over 20-25% of a reduced commission to an anonymous web site provider for nothing more than a lead. Consumers need to know that in using these sites, you’re simply not getting access to the best agents just the cheapest and most desperate.

http://www.reiwa.com has an Agent Finder that simply provides relevant details of professional local agents in your areas for you to choose from. But this remains just the starting point as you still need to thoroughly interview agents face-to-face before making your choice.

By Hayden Groves
REIWA President
REIA Deputy President