Australian Real Estate Websites: Domain.Com.Au

domain.com.au has a high profile in the Australian real estate market which is hardly surprising as its part of the Fairfax Digital Network which owns a number of Australian TV channels and newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Melbourne). domain.com.au also sponsors the long-running popular “Hot Property” TV program.

The site is a one stop shop whether you are interested in property sales or the rental market. Its easy to compare current sales prices and rental prices too. Its a slick design reflecting the major budget of the owners – but clicking on some of the major navigation tabs will somewhat confusingly take you off to related Fairfax sites without an obvious return link to domain.com.au. Listings level of detail reflects the advertising agent’s diligence but can include extensive details – well extensive by Australian standards. Thumbnails of photos show at the top level, but the pop up view of photos is easy to navigate and also incorporates location map views.

domain.com.au

Although with extensive listings, the site is not completely comprehensive. Particularly lower priced rentals. The listing fees of A$700 for sale and A$352 for a rental means that with low rental vacancies there the cost of advertising is a disincentive.

The are good generic tools for you to see suburb profiles and price statistics. Although the paid detailed property reports options are not integrated and requires the user to re-enter the property’s details to order the report.

Property searching is intuitively based on map navigation or the 4 digit postcode attached to all Australian addresses.

domain.com.au is the first Australian real estate site to incorporate the controversial Google Maps “Street View” which includes images of every property has a photograph taken from the nearest public access. The photographing of properties throughout Australia has been dogged by controversy by those concerned by the potential invasion of privacy but the reality is that a better tool has rarely been available for the real estate industry. Now finally it is possible to see an unbiased view of the kerb appeal of a property without the clever angle of the agent’s photography.

If you sign up as a free member you will also be able to access the My Domain tools including Home Alert, Property Shortlist.

One of the major property listing sites domain.com.au shouldn’t be ignored but as a paid site tightly aligned with traditional newspaper based real estate advertising it will be interested to see how its allowed to evolve past the traditional property advertising models.