Article by: Chris Dunkerley chris.dunkerley@thegpg.com Published: 12/07/2006

These sites usually charge agents a fee to let agents list their property and business details on the site. The benefit to the agent being increased exposure for their overseas property listings and supposedly more enquiries from these listings.

However one inherent problem with many of these sites is that they tend to either have a too narrow focus e.g. just property from a specific geographic area or they try to collect as many properties as they possible can from industrial, commercial offices, to domestic property that only appeals to a very small number of potential site visitors.

Enter http://www.property-partnership.com !

This site has been around for many years and is quite established in the search engines. It has however just been re-launched as a true multi agent site. It is now also a multi purpose site aimed at both overseas property purchasers and also overseas property agents. The main difference with this site from some of the new start-ups is that it is obviously aimed at ?overseas properties? that is holiday homes, retirement property, and short let rental property. It does not try to cater for all property on the planet like some other sites appear to be doing.

The site has also made a giant leap forward for multi agent site by adding a number of useful facilities for both overseas property agents and potential property buyers. Most notably:

For potential buyers or renters:

Save favourite agents as well as favourite properties.

Print or email favourite agents details for future reference.

Easily see the details for an agent who is listing a property.

Benefits For Overseas Property Agents:

Adding property and adding images is totally free! Many sites charge to add property and many others say it is free but then charge for adding images!

Property data is made available via XML ? a standard Internet data exchange format.

Other marketing and promotion aids are also provided to help agents promote their property and businesses.

So the site is not just another huge database for property it actually has features that will help overseas property buyers and agents.

Will Overseas Property Multi Agent Sites Catch On?

This not an easy question to answer and the success of these sites is almost entirely dependent on the Internet and how the search engines rank these sites in the future.

The overseas property market is maturing very quickly and there are now hand full of overseas property businesses that are starting to dominate the market with huge advertising budgets and grand exhibitions.

An overseas property market dominated by a few large companies is not necessarily good for the consumer as the potential property buyer may find it much more difficult to get a good selection of property. This may not sound logical but it is often the case that the larger the company the more specific the focus of the business. For example the big companies tend to focus on specific areas (usually the most popular areas), a few large developers and also mostly on new build property. A few of them are now building their own developments and they obviously push them far harder than property built by other companies.

Multi Agent Sites and the Search Engines

Small overseas property agents and developers now have very little chance of getting a high ranking in the search engines as the big property companies have far more money and ?man-hours? to develop and promote their own sites. They also usually have large numbers of properties to display and can spend a lot of time ensuring their sites and property details are designed to be search engine friendly.

The growth of multi agent sites in terms of numbers of properties listed, agents using them and services offered to site visitors may go some way to restore the balance in the market place by giving smaller agents and developers the ability to gain exposure for their properties.

This does of course depend on the search engines continuing to rank the sites among the top results and as long as the sites deliver good content and choice this should be the case. However the sites themselves have to do their bit by managing the content and constantly monitoring and upgrading the pages as required.

Keep an eye on www.property-partnership.com as this looks set to become one of the big multi agent sites of the future. The site is already used by a number of overseas property agencies including the one I work for, The Global Property Group Ltd.

For more information contact info@thegpg.com

The author Chris Dunkerley is a Director of The Global Property Group Limited.

External Article Link: http://www.thegpg.com/overseas-property-news/property-news.cfm?id=9

Article Link: http://www.thegpg.com/overseas-property-news/property-news.cfm?id=9

Please contact the author at chris.dunkerley@thegpg.com for more information.