Melbourne, Australia-base REA Group is closing its New Zealand residential-property portal at the end of November and will begin directing traffic to RealEstate.co.nz Ltd under a new alliance.

Under the deal, the New Zealand site will appear in the navigation of all 22 of REA Group’s sites around the world. “We expect our alliance with RealEstate.co.nz will better serve the country’s real estate agents and consumers and buyers overseas who are interested in New Zealand property,” said Shaun Di Gregorio, GM of REA Group’s Emerging Business Group. “We have decided that in the long term it doesn’t make business sense for us to operate our own residential real estate site in the country.”

The deal doesn’t effect REA Group’s commercial-property site in NewZealand, RealCommercial.com.nz.

“This alliance is great news for New Zealand’s real estate agents and consumers,” RealEstate.co.nz CEO Alistair Helm said. “Together with the REA Group we can run a much stronger real estate Web portal than if we continued to compete as two separate portals. We believe this will mean a more efficient and cost competitive solution for the real estate industry as compared to all other media options.”

Realestate.co.nz Ltd is a joint venture company owned in equal shares by The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) and Property Page (NZ) Ltd, a company owned by six of New Zealand’s largest real estate companies. The site attracts more than 90 percent of licensed real estate offices in New Zealand, shows more than 112,000 listings and reaches more than 260,000 unique users a month.

The REA Group operates Australia’s most popular real estate sites, including flagship RealEstate.com.au. It publishes 22 sites and eight print publications in 10 countries.