Strong demand for Vancouver property and the rapidly increasing use of the Internet for residential listings and development opportunities has prompted Glacier Media Inc. (TSX:GVC) to enter the real estate website marketplace.
Glacier, which owns Business in Vancouver, launched REW.ca on October 11. Its 33-year-old Real Estate Weekly publication also now bears the REW.ca brand.
General manager Ian Martin told Business in Vancouver that he expects consumers, realtors and developers will prefer Glacier’s REW.ca website to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s 12-year-old RealtyLink.org and the Canadian Real Estate Association’s co-operative MLS: Realtor.ca marketing system.
Martin said several features set REW.ca apart from the pack.
For example, it:
•includes listings for existing homes and those under construction;
•has Whistler listings;
•offers local real estate news alongside descriptions of each community;
•allows homebuyers to click a link to view nearby schools and other community amenities; and
•enables realtors and developers to advertise and promote themselves and their projects.
“Other sites don’t have listings for projects under construction,” Martin said. “In the Lower Mainland, we estimate that new construction is 20% of the inventory in the market.”
Realtors can place free listings, but Martin believes they’ll get more bang for their advertising buck at REW.ca because they’ll be able to pay to promote listings by making them larger and more colourful and accompany them with a realtor photograph.
“[REW.ca] sounds like a good big site,” Prudential Sussex realtor Annette Denk told Business in Vancouver.
Denk uses social media and otherwise splits her advertising dollars between real estate-focused sites, Craigslist and e-Bay Inc.’s (Nasdaq:EBAY) classified advertising subsidiary Kijiji.ca.
She believes REW.ca’s decision to shift from being primarily print-focused to targeting Internet traffic is a sound strategy.
She frequently asks new customers how they found her name and, if it was not passed on by word of mouth, the connection is usually made via the Internet.
Denk also pointed to the Internet’s ability to show virtual tours of homes as one of its key advantages over real estate print products. •
