Posts Tagged ‘property market’

The depressed state of the property market is making itself felt on the complementary service businesses – not just real estate agents, but mortgage brokers, lawyers and valuers.

As reported this week Quotable Value has in the past year shed 52 jobs taking its work force to 256, the majority of the attrition has been at the front line of valuation services around the country with 20 offices here in NZ and 5 in Australia.

Whilst Quotable Value is a state owned enterprise which generated a pre-tax surplus* of $18m to the government coffers last year what is less well known is the fact that the website of QV which is often the most publicly recognised face of the business is actually a joint venture with the Australian property information company RP data itself owned by First American. The primary business of Quotable Value is the provision of valuation services to local authorities and financial services companies as well as general business and individual residential valuation services, both in NZ and Australia. This operation outside of the online business generated revenue of just over $41m last year with a bottom line before interest of just under $200,000.

The QV website which provides property reports is operated by the company Property IQ and in the past year generated sufficient income to Quotable Value to largely create all of that $18m surplus*.

It is into this arena that Zoodle has launched itself as a joint venture between an equally credible property information company in Terralink and realestate.co.nz the official website of the real estate industry. The challenge now is going to come down to the consumer choice provided by the new entrant of Zoodle as a pure play online business and the more diversified incumbent in the high stakes business of providing relevant property information online.

In a coincidental quirk of timing it was interesting to note that the news article of the QV announcement was hosted on the NZ Herald website whilst the prominent banner advert at the header of the page was for Zoodle – a lucky coincidence or a timely reminder of the power of online businesses as compared to bricks and mortar. The screenshot below highlights the coincidence as ad campaigns tend to rotate fairly frequently online, as viewing of the page now may produce a different advert.

*AMMENDMENT – 3 March

I would like provide an amendment to some of the information presented above concerning Quotable Value.

1. RP data as the joint venture partner with Quotable Value in Property IQ is not wholly owned by First American. RP data is an ASX listed company. First American owns 38% of the shares in RP data
2. The inference that the website of www.qv.co.nz is responsible for the surplus of $18m is incorrect – the surplus is the total of the contribution to Quotable Value from online businesses of which Property IQ is one component. Equally the QV website is just one of the businesses of Property IQ.
3. The Property IQ joint venture was only commenced in April 2008 and the annual report referred to above covered the financial year ending June 2008. The $18m income to Quotable Value in the financial report covered online business not solely Property IQ.