Australia’s online real estate classifieds market has always been dominated by two players: News Ltd-backed realestate.com.au and Fairfax Media’s Domain. But now Google Maps, which has been listing properties in the country since July last year, has released its vision to become third player by announcing a new marketing partnership with L.J. Hooker, one of Australia’s largest real estate agency groups.

So far Google hasn’t made much of a dent in the 90 per cent market share Domain and realesate.com.au enjoy. But its foray into Australia’s property market has still been a bitter pill for the big two. Both line Google’s pockets by spending on AdWords and DoubleClick (intriguingly, the two sponsored links that came up when I last used Google Maps were for those two companies) and the Google model poses them both a threat, allowing vendors to bypass portals altogether and list directly on the site. That said, most listings still come through a third party including smaller real estate portals like HomeHound.com.au or direct from agents, and while Google has been receptive to the idea of a partnership with either – or both – of the major players, neither has been willing to team up.  

The reason for their reluctance is most likely because Google Maps is a next generation aggregator – one with a huge potential to sting the existing portals. Because while first generation aggregators are (and forgive this very crude analogy) like parasites which can’t exist without their listings portals hosts, realestate.com.au and Domain could slip away forever and Google Maps would survive just fine.

Google knows this and is specifically targeted agents by offering them a dedicated page to help sell their properties without any outside help. In the meantime, it’s keen to let the big two know they are keen to jump on board at any time:

“We’re happy to take listings from anyone,” Google Product Manager Andrew Foster said.

But the “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” subtext is obvious enough to scare the portals.  

Google’s YouTube ad campaign is here.