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Project Overview
13 million homes are now available at your fingertips, with Domain’s new Home Price Guide.
Available for free on Domain’s award winning iOS and Android apps, and web (responsive), Domain Home Price Guide provides homebuyers, sellers and renters with valuable data that has historically been kept in multiple proprietary systems, and has been difficult and expensive to obtain.
Everyone now has easy access to estimates of a property’s price, its sales and rental history, historical listing images, and the ability to see similar surrounding properties — whether or not the home is on the market, instantly.
Organisation
Team
Lyndon Maher
Christian Gillott
Russell Cam
Stuart Cam
Fabien Ruffin
Allan Hardy
Ray Vafa
Konstantin Burov
Joy Liu
Henry Soesanto
Daniel Caldeweyher
Anthony Lee
Wahyu Santo
Lachlan McCabe
Peter Finlan
Deepa Dhupelia
Dan Johnston
David Meier
Project Brief
The brief: “Democratise Property Data”. Make the property data consumers typically pay for today freely available on a mobile device.
The brief was driven by two clear trends emerging with regards to consumers and access to information.
The first trend is transparency. We are seeing this in just about every industry. Consumers have never before been more informed and educated due to the plethora of information now available. As a result, there is a high demand and expectation for transparency of information and data.
The second trend that has taken hold is immediacy. Consumers now expect to have access to services and information when and where needed. This is the mobile era.
The brief was to launch on mobile first, a new property research product, that would embrace these key trends, and provide access to property data to consumers like never before.
When we asked our Domain users, 86% of respondents said they would find it helpful to have access to up to date, free property value estimates (to buy sell or rent) when house hunting. They also wanted a guide to the value of their home, and use this to start a discussion with an agent when it came to selling.
The app would give immediate access to the same level of valuable data available from alternate sources that would have cost a consumer somewhere between $25 and $50 per property, where they would have received an old-school, non-mobile friendly "pdf report".
Project Need
The backbone of this product was the aggregation of MULTIPLE sources of data. A really clever use of big data to transform an area of high complexity into a simple consumer tool.
Domain Home Price Guide allows people on a mobile device to:
•Easily search the addresses of more than 13 million properties in Australia
•Quickly find out the estimated value of a property - both on the market, and off market.
•View the full sale and rental history of a property
•View more than 50 million historic property images from previous listings - providing a rich visual history of a home
•See similar surrounding properties to gauge an estimated value
•View the estimated rental yield and weekly rent for each property
•See the school catchment zone the property falls within
This extensive data on every property in Australia has never been made freely available before. It is a huge shift from the status quo not just for consumers, but holders of proprietary property data.
Opening up industry leading data sources empowers home owners, buyers, renters and vendors to make the best possible property decision, this will lead to a more active market for both sellers and buyers alike.
User Experience
More than 60 per cent of Domain users are already on a mobile device. It was critical we designed and developed Domain Home Price Guide with a focus on the mobile consumer.
Our mobile products have peak usage on Saturday mornings, when Australians are out and about looking for property so having access to information anytime anywhere was critical to offer.
Key steps taken:
•Provide fast searching of every property address in Australia, with suggestions to speed up accuracy and typing on mobile device.
•Present content, normally presented on a desktop or in a PDF report in an engaging and easily consumed format on a mobile display.
•A focus on simplicity. Home Price Guide is essentially an address search box, and a property profile page. Behind the product though is very large infrastructure and an enormous engineering effort.
When we asked our Domain.com.au users, almost half (43%) of respondents to a survey explained that obtaining property data incurs unnecessary costs, and they expect to have access to this information for free, and 60% said that cost of a property report has stopped them from obtaining one in the past.
We are already seeing very high engagement upon launch of this product, with multiple properties viewed each time the product is used - saving consumers the cost of an individual property report every time they view a property profile.
Project Marketing
An extensive multi channel marketing & PR strategy has been deployed to promote Domain Home Price Guide, covering social media, edm, newspapers, outdoor and television - including a dedicated TVC.
Leading with the core value proposition to value any property in Australia - we asked Australians the very simple question, “How much is your home worth?” and introduced them to Home Price Guide, which gave them access to information on 13 million properties around Australia.
Leading with this clear value proposition on launch resonated with the property obsessed Australian public, it enabled us to get immediate engagement with our Domain apps (both iOS and Android).
We posted several all time downloads per day records off the back of the marketing activity, a combination of both traditional and digital channels, clearly indicating a demand and interest in our value proposition.
In addition, we attracted significant media coverage with various major media outlets across online news, radio and television, all running stories showcasing the key consumer benefits of the new product, which drove incredible volumes of app downloads and record usage of the product. We have also found unique uses for Home Price Guide that appeal to the public via the media, for example getting inspiration for renovating from a home’s previous listing images. This is ensuring ongoing engagement with this incredibly useful tool.
Project Privacy
At Domain privacy is very important. We have adhered to new Privacy Act in regency from July 2014. We are transparent with our customers and have disclaimers in data collection points such as enquire forms and sign up pages.
We also are very diligent with app permissions and no personal contacts are sent to our servers. The data we do collect is used to give our customers personalised user experience and to promote the services.
In addition, links to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy are easily accessible in Domain’s websites and apps.
Best New Service or Application
This can be any new service or application from a start-up to an industry leader. It’s not just bells and whistles we're after but true innovation, exceeding expectations and filling a void that had previously been open.
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