SA Property Portal adopts free listing policy
In a good news development for the South African real estate industry, Skilpad.Com Property Portal has announced that South African estate agencies may list their properties for free on the portal on an ongoing basis.
Skilpad.Com is the fastest-growing property portal in South Africa, with some 80 000 property listings at the time of writing, a
nd is a leader in innovative property advertising and searching technology. Free listing on Skilpad.Com is therefore a valuable opportunity for estate agencies to secure quality advertising exposure without any additional cost. Advertising is a major expense for real estate professionals and many agencies have been forced to cut back on adspend due to the current tough market conditions.
In response to enquiries from estate agencies, Skilpad.Com spokesman Andre Viljoen has confirmed that the portal’s free listing offer is not for a trial period only but is a cornerstone of the company’s long-term business model. “We are committed to expanding the portal both in terms of the number of listings and the amount of relevant features and content. Keeping listing free for estate agencies will assist us in our vision of empowering property buyers with a website which will offer all of the properties and all of the resources they need in order to make informed purchases.”
Easy registration procedure
Estate agencies who wish to get their listings up and running on Skilpad.Com can do so by registering online by clicking on the “Estate Agents>Register” link and completing the quick registration form. Estate agency groups who wish to register can contact Andre at andre@skilpad.com or 083 309 7030. Agencies can choose between automatic listing, in which their properties are automatically added to the portal and updated daily, or manual listing via a control panel, which is ideal for agencies who wish to add selected properties only or those who do not currently have a website.
Skilpad.Com was developed by a Port Elizabeth-based team and launched nationally in July 2008. A few of the industry-leading innovations introduced since then are simple tools for adding video clips to listings via Internet or cellphone, a highly effective mobile search (at http://mobile.skilpad.com) and an interesting interactive property map search (at www.skilpad.com/mapsearch.php).
Many more new features are scheduled for addition to add value to the free property listing platform. In the future the portal will offer various value-added services that estate agents may choose to use for a fee.
Tags: property marketing, property news, property. property portals, south africa business news, south africa property, south africa real estate
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Congratulations Skilpad.Com I have been watching you for a few months & thought that you were another hopefull operator that would just fissle out! Well you’vd proved me wrong! Your site is amazing & the quickest & easiest to navigate in the industry. Keep up the innovating! Mark James
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
A sure sign of a failing business model is when you discount your product by 100%. There are just so many property portals that have little differentiation between them.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Arthur, agreed. But guaranteed free property listing is a facet of our business model and not 100% discounting of our product. See last para of blog post. We will charge for innovative premium services to be introduced later. Watch out for our skilpad which will be showing in places where you would least suspect!