4 September 2006

Realestate.co.nz partners with XtraMSN

Two of New Zealand’s most popular websites have agreed a unique partnership that will bring the country’s most comprehensive online range of property listings to even more people.

From 3 September XtraMSN will syndicate content from realestate.co.nz under its Real Estate section. Realestate.co.nz has over 75,000 property listings, while the XtraMSN site receives over 1,000,000 visitors per week.

“It’s a case of the best of both worlds for the users of the two websites,” explains Alistair Helm, Chief Executive, Realestate.co.nz Ltd. “XtraMSN users get access to the widest range of properties in New Zealand, while real estate agents and their clients that list on realestate.co.nz get an even bigger audience to view their property.

“Competition in online property listing market is incredibly fierce, with everyone looking to drive traffic to their sites. XtraMSN recognised the value of our content – with more than twice as many listings as our closest competitor. At the same time realestate.co.nz is working to protect its position in the market and this partnership fits perfectly into our strategy.”

People browsing XtraMSN who click on “Real Estate” will be directed to a co-branded version of the realestate.co.nz site, where they can search for residential, commercial and rural properties and businesses being sold by licensed real estate agents around New Zealand.

“Recent research from Nielsen//NetRatings shows that online is the future of real estate listing and searching,” says Alistair. “People searching for property also spend a lot longer online than normal Internet browsers.

“Realestate.co.nz essentially works as a search engine for people looking for properties. They can go to the site knowing they have the largest selection of properties at their fingertips, then set their specific criteria. Syndication of the content on XtraMSN means people don’t have to visit multiple sites to make sure they are seeing most of the market.”

Realestate.co.nz went live on August 13, with a multi-million dollar campaign starting on August 20. In the two weeks the site has been live there has been an increase in traffic to the site of over 10% in unique browsers judged against a flat market, additionally the site now averages over 350,000 page impressions per day.

ENDS