Google have yesterday declared their intention to launch an online property web site portal. This will give Estate Agents and sellers an equal opportunity to market their properties free of charge on the web site of the most powerful advertising business in the world. Google are on track to earn about £1.6 billion in the UK this year. No wonder RightMove the largest existing property portals shares dropped so much on the news. However its not the impact on portals that matters its the service that we get from estate agents.

There are a number of sites that home buyers use as the first ‘portal’ of call in property finding. The main ones are Rightmove, Globrix (Surprised?), Find a Property and of course Primelocation. All of them feature a fairly clunky mapping mechanism which Google’s cutting edge mapping and street level photography feature will excel at. If this is coupled with internal photos and a description in a seamless presentation for online remote viewing then I really cant wait!

We have already seen good local estate agency brands become swallowed up by large financial services behemoths. Companies like Prudential and Royal & Sun Alliance caused many estate agencies to lose brand identity and staff to lose enthusiasm and purpose. The appearance of Google’s portal will continue the tendancy for Estate Agents to look more amorphous and very much a second tier resource. Which portals survive and which don’t does not matter. Its Estate Agencies that are more important. The reality is that we are not at the stage where Google will be showing buyers houses, taking offers or progressing sales. Estate agents and home finders should welcome this and give sellers more value by concentrating on being more available to show properties on days like Saturdays when most of us buyers want to view and most negotiators seem to stay at home!

Labels: estate agency competition, Property web portals