RentCompass adds Facebook app for Canadian rentals
The Toronto-based real estate classified site RentCompass has launched a new Facebook app to complement the mobile apps it already has.
The basic concept behind RentCompass is nothing we haven’t seen before – a Google Map with available rentals appearing as house icons. Click any item to go to the property’s details page, which includes the usual goodies – pictures, contact info, floor plans. But in the relatively smaller Canadian market, a small fish can make a bigger splash.
RentCompass has so far been available as a website and as a geo-smart mobile app that shows you apartments in the vicinity of where you are at the moment – i.e., walk down the street and see what’s for rent. It’s available for the iPhone and Android phones.
The Facebook app basically puts the standalone app’s functionality into Facebook. Once inside the the social network’s all-encompassing world, you can like, share and comment on a rental, as well as ask your Facebook friends their opinions too. Given the popularity of Facebook for mobile, it’s a good move by RentCompass.
The company also has a presence on Twitter (with its own app too), but the tweets are just a feed of every new property appearing on the website; it’s not location savvy, making it more of a promotional ploy than a truly functional addition to the RentCompass family.
Listing and searching rentals are free on RentCompass. The company says it’s the first mobile service in Canada for rental apartments and the number one downloaded app in Canada for rental searching.
Affidata plays Anglophone card
Affidata.co.uk, the U.K. arm of Dutch property portal Affidata has hit on the idea of launching geolocalised searches showing English-speaking agents in the desired area to help English buyers looking for second homes. Given the notorious unwillingness of the English to speak another language, combined with their love of homes abroad the move seems entirely logical. Naturally if it proves popular it will immediately be reproduced by all the larger portals so Affidata’s first-mover status will be studied keenly by Rightmove, DPG et al.
Rightmove registers 20 percent traffic increase
U.K. property market leader Rightmove has published its Interim Management Statement for Jan. 1 to May 9 and the figures are looking good with a 20 percent traffic increase over the same period in 2011. The company enjoyed a record month in January with over a billion page impressions. Rightmove also notes that access via mobile apps “has been of particular note, in terms of rate of growth”, but doesn’t give figures.
The company is pinning its hopes for the future on a reported rise in ARPA (average revenue per advertiser) reporting that, “Over 75 percent of agents and new-home developers are now taking at least one additional product and over 30 percent of their spend in April was on additional advertising products”. This goes some way to counterbalancing the admission that the total number of advertisers has not risen over last year.
Zoopla buys UpMyStreet
Zoopla has just turned another page in the history of British property portals with the acquisition of UpMyStreet – one of the earliest property sites in the country.
UpMyStreet dates back to 1998 and survived the original dotcom boom before running into financial troubles in 2003. It was sold to uSwitch which was in turn bought by EW Scripps and then passed on to the Forward Internet group in 2009 but the company that now finds itself in Zoopla’s hands is a bit of a spent brand mostly of worth for the 1.1 million unique visitors it attracts (Comscore, March 2012).
Zoopla already attracts three times that many. Just what Zoopla paid to have that traffic redirected has not been disclosed, and Zoopla founder Alex Chesterman simply notes that; “This acquisition is a natural fit for us and allows us to further extend our audience and reach for the benefit of our members.”
Immonet rolls out new sites for Madsack
By Christo Volschenk
German real estate platform Immonet has gone live with new real estate portals on 7 regional newspaper sites of media group Madsack. Another 9 will go live before the end of May, 1 of which is not majority-owned by Madsack, Immonet said in a media statement today. Continue reading
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