realestate.com.au The Latest Portal to Report Record Traffic

The Australian portal realestate.com.au recorded record traffic figures in May. Visits to the REA Group run portal were up 37%, with 109 million cumulative visits over the month. Use of the portal’s mobile application also got a boost in May with the 43 million app launches representing a 35% increase. Not only were the traffic figures up, but it seems that visitors to the site were converting as the portal also saw a 49% jump in buyer enquiries.

According to REA Group Chief Audience and Marketing Officer Melina Cruickshank, the portal has benefitted from its “active decision to continue to invest in marketing our brand and products throughout the COVID-19 pandemic”. Realestate.com.au is now looking to double down here and this week the company launched a national advertising campaign focusing on people’s relationship with their gardens.

The rollout of digital inspections has been an area of particular success with 50,000 listings now carrying the feature on the portal and logging more than 2 million weekly views between them. Another initiative credited with success is REA Group’s partnerships with online auction platforms which have helped fuel more remote transactions.

We have covered a number of property portals from around the world reporting record traffic in the past few weeks (Rightmove in the UK and Hemnet in Sweden). It seems that as the way people view their homes has fundamentally changed during lockdown, the property portals have benefited greatly.