Users can input an address, a mode of transport and a desired travel time to the location and then search for properties within the radius generated by the new tool. The idea is to provide convenience for the increasing number of home hunters for whom the morning commute is a primary concern.

According to a press release, Fotocasa's tool is already live both on the portal's website and app and will soon take into account live traffic estimates. The tool is being promoted with a TV ad campaign featuring a student looking to find a place to rent closer to her university.

The feature is new to the Spanish market and currently only a handful of portals globally allow users to search by travel time to a given destination.

Adevinta-owned Fotocasa is widely considered the number two portal in the Spanish market in terms of traffic behind rival Idealista.

According to a press release, the update is the most comprehensive overhaul of Zillow's listings pages in five years. The redesign does away with scrolling on Zillow's desktop version and offers a wider layout.

"The new design delivers a fun and efficient way to browse homes on the Zillow website, making it easier for home shoppers to navigate and process information," said Jenny Arden, chief design officer at Zillow. "We introduced a wider layout for images, larger fonts for the most important facts and a clearer articulation of what makes the home special to help our users quickly understand if the home is right for them."

Zillow's listing pages are also getting a makeover on the iOS version of the company's mobile app. Again the idea is to limit scrolling with users presented with a layout with sections marked "What's Special,"' "Market Value," "Monthly Cost" and "Neighborhood."

According to a report on the local agent-facing publication Property Professional, the move is designed to "solidify the Group’s expressed intention that the platform should be an open marketplace that creates opportunities for all industry stakeholders, thereby ensuring that all real estate professionals can continue to transact with more than one major portal in South Africa."

BetterHome Group CEO Rudi Botha praised the portal's management in comments accompanying the news.

“The Private Property management team has made a number of constructive changes to set the business up for greater success in the future. Aside from increasing operational efficiency and investing in employee development, is has also brought in industry experts with specialist skills to move the business forward. Private Property has always been a long-term investment for our Group and we are entirely committed to seeing the platform grow over time to ultimately  compete successfully to ensure the sustainability of all stakeholders in the property market,”

BetterHome is a Johannesburg-based financial services company while Private Property is the number two portal player in South Africa behind Prosus-owned Property24.

BetterHome may have been able to extend its shareholding in Private Property following an unprecedented recent ruling from South Africa's competition commission. After an extensive investigation, the authority concluded that the two leading portals were impeding competition in the market and decreed that major agency groups must divest from Private Property.

• Overall company revenue was €73.4 million, down 1.5% year-on-year.
• Adjusted operating profit was €20.5 million, up 6.2%.
• Revenue from Alma Media's housing marketplaces was down 6.5% to €4.5 million.

Alma Media owns and operates Finland's leading real estate portal Etuovi as well as the country's largest rentals marketplace Vuokraovi. The company also operates several leading online classifieds assets across its home market (autos marketplaces Nettiauto, Autotalli.com and Alma Talent and Jobly.fi in recruitment) as well as Eastern Europe (including Prace.cz in the Czech Republic and Profesia.sk in Slovakia).

A company press release quoted the Central Federation of Finnish Real Estate Agencies in saying that 2023 is expected to be the weakest year for a long time for the housing market with only 3,822 transactions having been reported so far.

Those market conditions affected the company's earnings from its real estate portals with revenue from Alma Media's Finnish property portals falling 6.5% compared to Q3 of 2022.

Searches on the portal were down 11.5% however email alert signups were up 8.2% a figure the company says shows pent-up market demand while the volume of sale listings were up 5.7% with rental listings up 18.6%.

According to a press release, the portal operator aims to achieve A$12 million in annual revenue by 2026, thanks to its unique approach to the market.

Sidespace's distinguished backers include Patrick Grove, founder of Catcha Group, and Gilles Blanchard, co-founder of France's leading real estate portal, Seloger. Mathew Care, CEO of Digital Classifieds Group, and Chad Stephens, co-founder of innovative tech firms 1Form and Fillr, are also part of the investment mix.

Sidespace is seeking to bring a fresh perspective to the commercial real estate market through its success-fee-based business model. Founder and CEO Simon Hanlon emphasized their unique selling point, saying, "Rather than clients deploying up-front advertising spend, we absorb all the risk and clients only pay when a lease or sale is achieved."

The company's approach has already facilitated over 1,000 transactions, generating more than $2.5 million in revenue. Sidespace aims to offer landlords and agents a risk-free platform, where they only pay when a transaction is completed.

With the new funding, Sidespace plans to invest in technology and automation, key hires, and marketing efforts. Several major Australian landlords, including Dexus, BlackWall, and The GPT Group, are already using Sidespace, along with tenants and investors who have expressed satisfaction with the platform.

Sidespace intends to expand its presence in the commercial real estate sector, particularly in the flex office market. By providing a success-fee model and a unique approach, the company aims to introduce a new perspective to the commercial real estate landscape.

CoStar's bid of 110p per share represents a premium of 56% to OnTheMarket’s last closing price and 93% to the three-month volume-weighted average price. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023 pending shareholder approval with OnTheMarket's Board having already expressed unanimous support.

Rumours of the takeover began to circulate in British media outlets late yesterday and were confirmed this morning via press releases issued by the two companies. The news follows CoStar founder and CEO, Andy Florance's candid admission at the recent Property Portal Watch conference that his company was coming to Europe with a $9 billion M&A "war chest".

Speaking of the acquisition, Florance said:

“We believe the acquisition of OnTheMarket represents an attractive and efficient entry point into the £8 trillion United Kingdom residential property market. We are excited to welcome the OnTheMarket team to the CoStar Group family.”

“OnTheMarket’s network of property professionals and breadth of advertiser relationships provide a strong foundation to compete with the dominant United Kingdom property portals,” continued Florance.

“The combination of OnTheMarket’s large network of agents and access to listings, together with the marketplace experience and resources of CoStar Group, has the potential to create the leading agent-friendly player in the UK residential marketplace. We see OnTheMarket as an important step in expanding our Homes.com residential network not only in the UK, but across Europe. We believe the market opportunity in Europe is over $10 billion, and we intend to participate aggressively in developing and expanding our residential marketplace network.”

As Florance highlighted in an on-stage interview with Online Marketplaces Chairman Simon Baker recently, CoStar has a track record of taking minor players and spending its way to market leadership. The company took Apartments.com from a minor player in the U.S. rentals market to an undisputed market leader and is in the process of turning Homes.com into a viable challenger to Zillow in the residential sales market.

The S&P 500 company has a phenomenal record of growth and clearly sees European expansion as part of its next phase.

A press release said that as the owner of OnTheMarket, CoStar would commit to spending £46.5 million on sales and marketing in the first full year "as the first stage of a multi-year investment programme totalling hundreds of millions of pounds". The intent to take on Rightmove was left in no doubt with the press release name-checking the dominant British portal saying that the figure was three times the current annual marketing spend of OnTheMarket's big green rival.

OnTheMarket's CEO, Jason Tebb referenced the increased budget set to be at his disposal in his comments:

“From a position of strength, partnering with CoStar Group will significantly accelerate our strategy with the clear target of becoming the market leader, whilst staying committed to fair and sustainable pricing. CoStar Group will bring industry-leading global expertise and significant financial firepower to invest in OnTheMarket, allowing us to accelerate our transformation of the sector. We have strong shared values in our commitment to agents who we believe will benefit from unparalleled value and greater opportunities to enhance their businesses.”

The takeover looks set to revive OnTheMarket after a slightly rocky period. Founded by agents in 2013, OnTheMarket failed to live up to expectations largely thanks to the controversial 'one other portal rule' and some questionable PR from its management. The portal looked to have found the right path under former agent Tebb's leadership which began in late 2020.

The majority agent-owned enterprise made a small net profit in 2020 and has been close to breaking even since then. However, despite increasing revenue and ARPA the company's latest missive to the market in July had some industry commentators worried about the falling number of agents listing on OnTheMarket.

With the acquisition, DCG now operates online classifieds sites across seven markets including Laos, Cambodia and Fiji.

Digital Classifieds Group Portals

DCG Group CEO Mathew Care reflected on the quality of the Lamudi business.

“Lamudi, under the stewardship of the dubizzle Group and the management team, have created dominant classifieds and transactional property marketplaces in two of Asia’s most exciting markets: Indonesia and the Philippines. Our vision is to build a market leading classifieds group in South East Asia, a region of incredible opportunities, and this acquisition is a catalyst to delivering this vision. I am incredibly excited to enter these markets and welcome the Lamudi team to the DCG family.”

Lamudi is the second real estate portal asset that DCG has acquired from Dubizzle Group (formerly EMPG) this year with the Dubai-based group having sold the leading Bangladeshi portal Bproperty to DCG in January. Dubizzle Group appears to be divesting from non-core assets ahead of a rumoured IPO.

Having been founded in 2013, Lamudi was acquired by Dubizzle Group (formerly EMPG) in 2020 with a subsequent injection of capital into the business following in 2021. Lamudi effectively holds the number two position in the Indonesian market behind 99.co while in the Philippines it is the dominant real estate vertical.

Earlier this year Dubizzle Group announced layoffs at the Indonesian branch of Lamudi citing an "optimization drive" while rival Indonesian portal operator PropertyGuru decided to pull out of the market.

In a conversation with DCG management, Online Marketplaces learned that Lamudi would be a core company focus and that the business would benefit from management's expertise and experience with similar businesses.

While declining to go into specifics of the Lamudi deal, DCG did confirm a report in the Australian Financial Review from earlier this week that it may be looking to float on the ASX following its latest acquisition.

"As an owner-operator, we are confident we can drive robust returns from our dominant market positions for current and future investors. A listing on the ASX or another exchange will give the company access to capital to fund further growth opportunities via M&A, which we believe is vital in creating Southeast Asia's largest property marketplace."

DCG is set to benefit from the experience of Fusion4 Ventures, the investment company that led a recent investment round into the business. Fusion4 Partner Joe Hanna (former CEO of The PropTech Group) will be joining the board while Michael Fiorenza (former CFO of The PropTech Group) will be joining DCG as a CFO.

Disclosure: Online Marketplaces' Chairman, Simon Baker is an investor in and advisor to Digital Classifieds Group.

• Revenue grew 59% year-on-year to INR 2,250 million ($27 million).
• Gross Transaction Volume (GTV) grew 77% year-on-year.
• EBITDA margin improved from -28% (Q2 FY23) to -5%.

Square Yards is a diversified PropTech business and real estate marketplace. For consumers, the company operates a core new homes listings service as well as an existing homes segment (Square Yards), a property management business (azuro), a renovations business (Interior Company) and a fintech offering (Urban Money) which is now contributing around a third of the company's revenue.

The company operates in its native Indian market where it competes with the likes of REA India, 99acres and Magic Bricks as well as in the Middle East and further afield in markets with a strong Indian ex-pat community such as Canada and Australia.

Square Yards' real estate services saw muted growth in the first half of the financial year but the segment is expected to deliver stronger metrics in the second half.

As for the Square Yards portal, the company claims that it is gaining market share with average traffic of around eight million visitors per month.

Despite corporate overheads leading to a negative EBITDA margin for the first half of the year, an email circulated to journalists emphasized that due to the seasonal nature of revenue in the Indian market, the company expects to be profitable at a corporate level for the financial year. The company said it is on track for around 25 per cent Gross margin and an EBITDA margin of between three and four per cent.

According to a report by Reuters which quoted anonymous sources, the activist investor recently bought shares in the Murdoch-controlled media company.

Starboard has a history of pushing for changes at the companies it invests in and was one of the loudest voices behind eBay's sale of its classifieds division to Adevinta in 2020.

Newscorp's market cap currently stands at around $12.5 billion with Starboard said to value the company's portfolio at closer to $20 billion. A Wall Street Journal article said that the hedge fund values Newscorp's crown jewel, the Australian portal company REA Group, at $8 billion alone.

The other Newscorp real estate asset under scrutiny is Move, Inc. the parent company of Realtor.com. In January the portal was almost sold off to CoStar for a reported $3 billion. Since then CoStar has invested heavily in organically building up its own real estate portal asset, Homes.com and recently claimed that it has taken the number two spot from Realtor.com.

Starboard is not the only Newscorp investor that would like to see a change. Reuters reports that Irenic Capital Management last year pushed News Corp to spin off its real estate assets and Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Any spin-off or outright sale would almost certainly need approval from the Murdoch family who own 39% of Newscorp's voting shares.

In a blog post, DelPrete showed how the percentage of an agent's commission Zillow takes for houses that transact for more than $500,000 has been raised from 35% to 40% in six regional markets.

At the end of the 2021 financial year, Zillow CEO Rich Barton told investors that he expected the company to be making $5 billion in revenue at a 45% EBITDA margin by the end of 2025. The Flex price hike seems to be a small step towards that lofty goal as the U.S. housing market continues to be sluggish.

The price increase appears to have occurred quietly in September in the Denver, New Haven, Cape Coral, Reno, Oklahoma City, and Greenville markets.

Under Zillow's Flex program selected agents don't pay the portal upfront but do pay the company a success fee if and when a lead transacts. At the time of writing, there were 11 so-called 'enhanced' regional markets where Zillow only uses its Flex model.

The model is very different from the company's main breadwinner, its Premier Agent product, which sees agents pay the portal for buyer leads.

Zillow has been progressively rolling out Flex in more markets and the model is seen in some quarters as Zillow's insurance play against two pending lawsuits which could impact its Premier Agent business.