The  new REAA 2008 came into full effect today.

All real estate agents (including companies licensed as agents) must be licensed under this Act. It requires agents to ensure certain information is displayed on all advertisements, including the agent’s name and the fact that they are licensed under the Act.

When agents list property on Trade Me, the words “Licensed Agent (REAA 2008)” will be included beneath the agent’s company name.

Some other facts you should know about real estate advertising under the new Act:

When you appoint a real estate agent to help sell your property, the agent (or salesperson(s) who work for the agent) will generally give you a number of advertising and marketing options. These are usually presented in the form of a written marketing plan or plans, with an associated budget.

Do you have to pay for advertising?

You do not have to pay for advertising if you do not want to.

Agents generally undertake a certain amount of advertising and marketing as part of their service to you. Before you commit to paying extra advertising and marketing costs, ask the agent or salesperson what marketing and advertising they will provide without charge.

Your agent or salesperson may suggest that your property would benefit from advertising and marketing over and above any “free” exposure. They may suggest local or regional newspaper advertisements, or the placement of larger or full-page advertisements in specialist property publications.

You should not agree to pay for any additional advertising without first receiving a written proposal, and an itemised breakdown of the costs involved.

You also need to consider whether the cost of advertising will provide you with any additional benefit. Will this additional advertising bring you a higher price or a faster sale?

What sort of advertising could you expect to get free of charge?

The sorts of things usually included, without additional charge as part of their service (although these may vary) are:

• Putting details of your property on the agency’s website.
• Putting details of your property on other real estate websites (eg Trade Me Property).
• Advertising your property in specialist real estate publications.
• Displaying a photo or photos and property details in the agency’s office.
• Possibly providing a “for sale” sign outside your property.

When does advertising have to be paid for?

Unlike commission, which is only paid towards the end of a sales process, advertising expenses generally have to be paid upfront, and they have to be paid whether or not your property sells.

Do you still have to pay for advertising even your property does not sell?

Yes you do. If you have agreed to pay for advertising you still have to pay for this even if your property does not sell.

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What does this news mean for prospective buyers?
Looking for a home to rent or buy? Now you can go to the real estate section of Google Maps, nominate a city or suburb and then be presented with available home listings in that area. [A little word of warning -- because Google Maps is a global service, you do need to be quite specific in your location, otherwise you're as likely to be presented with maps for "Hamilton, New Jersey" or "Epsom, UK" as their local equivalents]

Your search parameters can be further refined by:

• whether the property is for sale or for rent
• type of property
• number of bedrooms
• number of bathrooms
• parking capacity (number of cars)
• and even area sought, in square metres

Listings details are relatively limited, but include a link back to the real agents’ site or to aggregator sites such as realestate.co.nz where you can find more details about each property. Presumably in due course we’ll also see links back to Trade Me Property listings as well.

This new Google Maps real estate service has just launched, so you’d expect to see only a few listings — but already at least some of the NZ maps look like they’ve got a bad case of the measles, with spots designating available properties scattered everywhere, prepopulated courtesy realestate.co.nz and leading agents such as Harcourts.

What’s unique about this service, from a buyer’s perspective?
As more and more properties get added to the maps, it’s likely to become (as far as we’re aware) the only property listings site where you can look at a specific area such as a suburb on a map and see what’s currently available in that area. That’s likely to make it a good starting point for property searches.

In time we’ll also start to see the service integrated into Google’s main search  results: search for “townhouse for sale Christchurch” and you’ll eventually see a map at the top of the search results, with featured properties flagged.

And from a seller’s perspective?
Did we mention “free”? And, of course, there’s the small matter of all that traffic passing through Google — better to be included than not, especially if you can point viewers to a link containing full details.

What about from Trade Me’s perspective?
It’s another competitor, at least for eyeballs. And who’s to say that somewhere down the line Google won’t charge a fee for this service, once it reaches critical mass? Or remove the ability to link back to another site? Still, Google’s already gotten into the game, so Trade Me might as well tap into the promotional power of all that Google traffic.

As the cliche goes, better to have Google inside the tent than outside …

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To no-one’s surprise, Trade Me Property continues to dominate. Drum roll, please, as we present the Top Ten Real Estate Websites (as determined by Nielsen Online’s NZ Market Intelligence data) for the month:

1. Trade Me Property 828,586 unique browsers
2. RealEstate.co.nz 364,055
3. Harcourts.co.nz 165,919
4. Trade Me Flatmates 138,758
5. Open2view.com 129,741
6. nzherald.co.nz/propertynews 95,319
7. Barfoot.co.nz 94,812
8. Bayleys.co.nz 92,145
9. RayWhite.co.nz 87,310
10. Professionals.co.nz 69,093

Of course, none of that means sales, but you take what you can get ….

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2. Latest Pricing Changes On Property & Motors Property Pricing Changes – selling up, renting stays the same....
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Motors pricing changes - if they go, they go up. If they don’t go, they go down.
The fee to list a car, boat or truck is increasing from $29 to $39, effective 22 January. The fee to list a wrecked car will decrease from $29 to $19. There are no changes to vehicle success fees and you may continue to relist your vehicle until sold for no additional cost.

The pricing of promotional options for Car Parts Wanted will also change, and will become the same as the standard fees for general goods. This is a decrease for Subtitle and Bold options, and an increase of 50c for Featured Listings. All success fees, and the fee to list motorbikes remain the same.

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