Media release
Domain.com.au blog has property-seekers talking
New blog and personalised features tap into Australia’s passion for property
26 April 2007 –Domain.com.au, Fairfax Digital’s property channel, today announced the introduction of a blog for Australian property-seekers to express their thoughts and share their property experiences.
The Domain.com.au blog (http://blogs.domain.com.au), which was quietly released earlier this month, has had an enormous response from the online property audience.
“People love to tell others about their property triumphs and frustrations and the Domain blog gives them that forum online,” Sam Plowman, general manager Domain.com.au said.
“Our blog topics have really struck a chord with property seekers, with almost 400 comments on whether owning your dream home is worth living on poverty street. This topic alone already has more comments than all nine of realestate.com.au’s blogs combined.”
Domain blog topics include the controversial, entertaining and informative. For example, property expert Michael McNamara from Australian Property Monitors currently blogs about overhauling negative gearing and ‘Why axing the first home buyer grant is a good idea’.
‘My Domain’ – new features
‘My Domain’, the personalised section of domain.com.au, also has a range of new features to make keeping track of the property search process easier.
“The new ‘Property checklist’ feature on Domain.com.au allows visitors to keep track of progress they make with each property - whether information has been requested, if they have visited the property or their upcoming inspection time,” Mr. Plowman said.
Another handy feature is the ability to add personalised ‘Notes’ to shortlisted properties. If users like the neighbourhood, the size of the garden, kitchen or bathroom, the notes feature allows them to record comments for future reference and research.
The new ‘Recommended new listings’ feature provides users with suggested properties of interest based on their ‘last search’ criteria, cutting down valuable searching time, while the new ‘Recently viewed’ feature collects most recently viewed properties by the logged in user and stores them for the user’s future reference.
March also marked a record month with 2,038,610 unique browsers* visiting the Domain.com.au suite of products. This marked a seven per cent growth from the previous month, five per cent higher than realestate.com.au, which recorded a growth of two per cent in March.
“This impressive growth month-on-month further strengthens the position of Domain.com.au at a time when things are heating up in the online real estate market,” Plowman said.
Source: *NIELSEN//NETRATINGS, MARKET INTELLIGENCE, AUSTRALIA REAL ESTATE TOTAL, MARCH 2007*
