Sourcing opportunities online

A Gold Coast company is taking online real estate to new levels with its advanced property analysing website designed specifically for investors.

Real Estate Investar enables members to search for residential properties that match their specific investment strategies through 31 advanced search filters.

The website boasts more than 700,000 properties across Australia and New Zealand with a total value of $218 million.

Real Estate Investar partner Jude Bailey, says the technology heralds in a new era for online realtors.

“Five years ago only around 50 per cent of properties for sale were listed on the internet, but these days the status quo is just to ‘throw it on the web’,” says Bailey.

“Real estate is now available at your fingertips but website property sales is a fast evolving industry. The popular or ‘traditional’ real estate websites display property results based on a simple search that may involve half a dozen filters.

“Real Estate Investar is much more advanced and basically does what Google does. It searches through the properties using 31 filters that look for specific key words, phrases or concepts that suit your investment strategy.”

The website was launched in late 2009 following two years of development and refining. Initially only a limited number of 200 investors were invited to trial the system to iron out any technology bugs.

Bailey says now more than 2000 members can find suitable investment properties more efficiently than ever before.

“The intelligent search engine can narrow down the results as specifically as the user requests,” she says.

“For example, searching for the key phrase ‘distressed seller’ brings back 35,000 results nation-wide. This can be refined to 18,000 properties in Queensland or you can further refine what city, region or suburb you wish to purchase in.”

The search filters are complemented by several additional tools including an advanced property analyser.

By analysing all the details of the selected property, the user can compare the market value of the home to the asking price, median housing price in the suburb and a range of other factors.

“You can even search for properties that are a certain percentage or dollar figure under the market value so prospective investors that are very time poor don’t have to spend hours searching for a property bargain,” says Bailey.

“While we are very excited about what the technology can do, the basic end result is that property buyers will know all the details of a house before even contacting the agent. This type of time-saving tool has the potential to revolutionise the real estate industry.”