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In addition to enhancing buyers’ capacity to find properties, the site will allow vendors free property listings.
View.com.au, the latest product from View Media Group (VMG), is the “culmination of years of hard work”, group executive chairman, Antony Catalano, explained. The portal, which is available on the website or through app stores, will showcase around 11 million Australian properties, whether they’re for sale or not. It aims to provide customers a complete view of the market.
For vendors, the portal’s ‘Freemium’ listings model allows sellers to list their properties for free, with upgrade options available for those agents wishing to further promote their listing or brand.
“We’ve listened to the industry and the time is right for an offer to come to market with an alternative model that addresses the real estate industry’s concern at the continually escalating price of advertising,” Mr Catalano said.
“We feel that restricting consumers to only being able to search for those properties that are currently for sale is extremely limiting,” he shared, adding “it’s like saying that you should only advertise a job vacancy to those that are unemployed.”
“Often the best candidate is already employed and we feel the same logic can be applied in the property category.”
The portal allows buyers to view all properties, regardless of availability, with Mr Catalano expressing his belief that allowing users to the service to express interest in unlisted property can “hopefully stimulate the market and encourage transactions that might not have otherwise occurred”.
View chief executive officer Toby Balazs said a global search for property searching best practice as well as a host of consumer testing revealed “without a doubt the preferred experience is map-based search”.
“So, unlike others in the market who default customers to a list view, we’ll default our search results via a map,” he said. Additional benefits of the map include allowing seamless displays of “listed and unlisted properties all in the one unified experience, so consumers can look to buy, rent, sell, or research property in context and on the same platform”.
Vlad Gagovic, head of strategic partnerships and alliances at Nearmap, the map delivering partner of the portal, believes the “functionality we are building together will become an indispensable new way to find, explore and select your next property or suburb”.
“Nearmap is excited to work with a partner that wants to make this easier for everyone,” Mr Gagovic added.
The campaign
The product launch coincides with View’s new brand, positioning and marketing campaign, set to go live on the AFL grand final day broadcast on Channel 7, 7plus and print wraps across the ACM network.
VMG chief marketing officer, Paul Tyrrell, explained: “We want to do things a bit different from what we traditionally see in property marketing.”
“Our positioning is that with View, you ‘See All’ – a simple and clean representation of the complete view of the market that the new View product delivers,” he said.
Developed in partnership with The Monkeys in Melbourne, View’s brand campaign explores the extraordinary lengths people go to get ahead in the property game and how View has shifted this need.
“We want to have a bit of fun with it, so we played with humour to ensure memorability and cut through while always ensuring the core message out take and product uniqueness is clear,” he added.
Ant Keogh, chief creative officer at The Monkeys, added: “The real estate category is highly competitive, and as the new player to market we needed to cut through and be as distinctive as possible.”
VMG’s plans do not cease with the portal’s launching, with Mr Catalano explaining the company is “well on the way to forming a global-first conglomerate of proptech assets”.
“We are bringing together a group of businesses and experts in the industry to form a true disruptor in the rapidly evolving proptech sector,” he raised.
The platform unveiling follows a $50 million investment into VMG by big four bank ANZ Group Holdings earlier this year, which followed on from the announcement that the group would be backed by Seven West Media.
Seven West Media owns the commercial television network Seven Network alongside newspaper brands, including The West Australian, The Sunday Times, and the Community Newspaper Group.
Seven West Media managing director and CEO James Warburton, said: “View Media Group is an exciting game-changer for the property industry.”
“Antony’s experience and the expert team he has assembled will help VMG be the ultimate destination for property seekers and sellers in Australia. Seven West Media is firmly behind Antony and the VMG team and looks forward to its success,” Mr Warburton concluded.
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