Trademe reckons vendors fair game

[sidinz]

Such concern for private sellers who've eschewed the agents' services. Awwwwwwwwww.

[Davo36]

Such concern for private sellers who've eschewed the agents' services. Awwwwwwwwww.

What? That makes no sense to me.

[sidinz]

Just that I doubt that they are really so concerned for private sellers, who after all, have chosen not to use the agencies' services. In using private sellers like this, they have found an 'injured innocent' to hold up during their crusade.

[elguapo]

"A group of real estate agents plan to boycott Trade Me after the company announced fee hikes labelled "extravagant" and "unaffordable" - a move that could impact on home-owners trying to sell privately."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11164397

Seems to be mainly Harcourts and Waikato agents who are talking boycott of Trademe. 7614 for sale residential listings for Waikato today. I will have a looksee in a couple of months to see if Mr Shales's prediction is correct.

"Trade Me will have virtually no stock in Hamilton," Mr Shale said. "And the viewings will diminish if the stock isn't there to look at. If there's nothing to compare your property to, the private seller is the one who'll pay because you're not going to have the eyeballs on the site and the industry site won't allow private sellers."

This does rather ignore the fact that, for the most part, it's no longer the agents who control the advertising.

[Neongreen]

Really I think this is going to have the agents shooting themselves in the foot. TradeMe is excellent and I found my place through there - and not realestate.co.nz. As a vendor, I would be fine with paying for TradeMe over say property press. They have something good and now they will charge for it. There'll be lots of moaning but I doubt this will materially affect them.

[artemis]

In this week's NBR article by Alistair Helm headed - Agents to boycott Trade Me - I don't think so. Not behind the paywall for the weekend only so be quick if you want to read the whole thing. Extract below ...

"The headline from the NZ Herald: "Agents shun Trade Me after listings fee surge" is an engaging headline but largely incorrect and unlikely to come true. As yet real estate agents have not shunned Trade Me Property and I suspect that by February when it proposes to recharge for these fees, this story will be history.

The fact is this resentment by real estate agents to accept a new fee structure from Trade Me Property is totally out of context to the true value of the service that Trade Me deliver. The context is this. To sell a house in New Zealand using one of the many name brand franchise real estate companies costs, for an average house, $17,000. The advertising budget for that house has to include online and has to include Trade Me. An agent may tell you that you need to spend upward of $5000 for a comprehensive marketing budget and it should include this advert and that full page and this flyer and that insert. The fact is you don't. There is Trade Me and that's it (add in professional photos and a sign board as well). The cost of that advert which promotes that property to an audience in excess of 120,000 visitors a day to New Zealanders and a global audience is just $399. Just $399 to sell a $500,000 property for which an agent charges close to $20,000. Oh, and by the way, an agent can get this $399 advert for just $159 + GST."

Worth a read.

[SlyAnimal]

haha yeah when I saw this article a month or two ago I wondered what agents were complaining about.

Well I can understand that they don't want any fees to go up, but considering how effective trademe is, it's still a bargain to list on trademe. They might protest on principal, but in reality they're not going to find any other media which is as even half as effective as trademe, and any half effective media probably costs them an amount similar to trademe's new fees anyway lol.

[donna]

.

In this week's NBR article by Alistair Helm headed - Agents to boycott Trade Me - I don't think so. Not behind the paywall for the weekend only so be quick if you want to read the whole thing. Extract below ...

"The headline from the NZ Herald: "Agents shun Trade Me after listings fee surge" is an engaging headline but largely incorrect and unlikely to come true. As yet real estate agents have not shunned Trade Me Property and I suspect that by February when it proposes to recharge for these fees, this story will be history.

The fact is this resentment by real estate agents to accept a new fee structure from Trade Me Property is totally out of context to the true value of the service that Trade Me deliver. The context is this. To sell a house in New Zealand using one of the many name brand franchise real estate companies costs, for an average house, $17,000. The advertising budget for that house has to include online and has to include Trade Me. An agent may tell you that you need to spend upward of $5000 for a comprehensive marketing budget and it should include this advert and that full page and this flyer and that insert. The fact is you don't. There is Trade Me and that's it (add in professional photos and a sign board as well). The cost of that advert which promotes that property to an audience in excess of 120,000 visitors a day to New Zealanders and a global audience is just $399. Just $399 to sell a $500,000 property for which an agent charges close to $20,000. Oh, and by the way, an agent can get this $399 advert for just $159 + GST."

Worth a read.

and you continue to read the article on Alistair's own blog site here



cheers,

Donna

[mortgage broker]

I have heard that there are more listings from real estate agents on realestate.co.nz ? Has anyone found any bargins on this site? If they had some foresight they would open it to private sellers to try and gain some viewership.

http://www.realestate.co.nz/

[Wayne]

If they had some foresight they would open it to private sellers to try and gain some viewership.

been said already

[Maccachic]

I check on there they seem to have rural properties that are not listed on trademe.

[speights boy]

Commerce Commission says has started investigating real estate agency decisions to withdraw vendors' listings from Trade Me

The Commerce Commission has said it is investigating the decisions by groups of real estate agency offices in Hamilton and Hawkes Bay to withdraw more than 1,700 listings from Trade Me Property over the last three weeks.

"I can confirm that the Commission is looking into this and is currently assessing all the information," Commission Spokesman Gordon Irving told Interest.co.nz, adding there was nothing more the Commission could add.

The Commission monitors compliance of companies with the Commerce Act and in particular anti-competitive activities, including collusion to lessen competition in a market.

www.interest.co.nz/property/68354/commerce-commission-says-has-started-investigating-real-estate-agency-decisions-withd

[sidinz]

Have others also noticed the advertising war going on at the moment? I've never seen realestate.co.nz advertise before....

[artemis]

.....Also I did a rough count up of the for sale property listings this morning, and they are similar in numbers, with TM actually having fewer listings. Realestate - 57k, TradeMe 54k. So suggest that allowing private sellers, free or not, ain't going to make much difference.

The above rough count was 3 months ago. Just did the same again and Realestate has about 59k listings, TradeMe 52k. So the gap is wider. Hard to tell any regional differences as the boundaries are different. But noticeable difference in Hawkes Bay listings (TM 919, RE 2020), which makes sense since HB is one of the regions withdrawing TM listings.

[elguapo]

The above rough count was 3 months ago. Just did the same again and Realestate has about 59k listings, TradeMe 52k. So the gap is wider. Hard to tell any regional differences as the boundaries are different. But noticeable difference in Hawkes Bay listings (TM 919, RE 2020), which makes sense since HB is one of the regions withdrawing TM listings.

RE's can list on realestate for free and from what I've seen properties in markets that move slowly sit on there for years at times. This one has been on nearly 8 years;

http://www.realestate.co.nz/376360

For Hawks Bay, nearly a third of the listings seem to be more than 12 months old.