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I work in the real estate sector and can tell you that all agents look forward to Google smashing realestate.com.au and domain.com.au out of the water. We are sick and tired of the non-stop fees and lack of alternatives for customers and agencies. As soon as the Google service is ready we'll be totally dumping realestate.com.au and domain.com.au permanently.
Yes, News and Fairfax both know well how to milch the cash cow, charging listings according to each sector's ability to pay, rather than costs of handling a listing... but be careful what you ask for. If Google were to knock the Aussie competitors "out of the water", then the one remaining entrant could truly charge a monopoly rent, like the Ebay/PayPal combo does in other areas of listings. Craigslist is the interesting one, as it's newspaper-killer potential has never been reached, but with free listings, it is unable to promote itself, yet has the potential to be the ultimate winner. The problem is that there is a natural monopoly, as people do not want to search various listing sites, yet any commercial entity which gets near that monopoly starts charging such high rates as to encourage competition (eg how Fairfax priced the 'rivers of gold' in Sydney and Melbourne print markets before on-line listings took off)...
Let me tell you the story being told internally at REA is a little different. Someone should ask the Chief Executive what his comments were at the recent REA Conference.
I think you will see a withdrawal from the other markets as they concentrate on their "Cashcow" called Australia.
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I'd be a tad concerned if Google started to show an interest - they have a solid technology base and extensive business partnerships. Migration from one 'e' service provider to another is merely the click of a button.