Thanks for the positive feedback on the new-look 'Client Zone' - which we launched a few days ago. We hope the facelift makes our 'back-end' area easier to use with its neat, bright look. There's also a new Client Zone Manual, and Photo Tips manual, that you can download within the CZ area.

We have a question up there in the 'Message Board' at the moment - would you like us to add a new feature where you could enter properties FIRST, have them off the web site for a while until you are ready to 'go live' with them?

The default option would be that properties would NOT go live to the web as you enter them, you'd have to make sure the 'GO LIVE' button was ticked to 'YES' to make them show. This gives you time to add all the photos and check everything before it goes out on the web site, feeds to other sites and have property alerts sent out to all and sundry.

We could see initial confusion for some ("why is my property not on the web?!!!")... but others have told us it would reduce stress by being able to enter properties in skeletal form, then update and ready them before going live. And then property alerts would go out only once the info was all entered (not just the text).

If you have a view on this, please EMAIL CHARLIE - and/or VOTE in our live poll (see right hand side bar of this enewsletter). We are your local independent web site, so what you want ... we will do!

When we launched aussiehome.com on December 6th 1999, we employed the world's first interactive mapping technology (properties you could click on laid out on maps on the 'Net). It got us some media attention, and we thought it was pretty cool. As with many an innovation, in time they become common place (remember when it was thought CDs would not work in cars due to the "vibration problem"?). Now with Google Mapping, every person and their dog seems to be interactively mapping these days!

Another first for the aussiehome.com site (and a more popular area than mapping in fact) was our suburb trend charting - yes, other sites have these too now! - where you can plot up to 5 suburbs' median prices over time against each other, much as you might pore over stock price charts.

A major improvement to our suburb charting went live last week, and also all our clients sites with charting received FREE upgrades. You can now choose from SIX different chart types, choose your time frame, and the charts are now printable. Developed by our programming team in India, we are now able to CUSTOMISE these charts for our clients sites (so it has your logo, not ours, in pop up box tailored to your brand). If you want to keep the free upgrade, please do so with our best wishes - if you'd like customisation we can do that for a one-off programming & design fee of just $150+GST. Please contact PHIL or CHARLIE  to get this done.

The Suburb Charts mentioned above use REIWA's median price data for 270 suburbs, based on house and unit sales over the 2007 calendar year.

Analysing the 270 suburbs, we found:

• Perth median price ROSE in 2007 to $490,000 (a rise of 2.6%)
• 50 suburbs outdid the 2.6% rise, with 6 recording double digit growth
• 132 suburbs saw their median prices grow from their 2006 levels
• 87 saw their median prices fall, of which all but 12 suburbs saw falls of less than 5%
• Ascot grew 16.5%, Bullsbrook 12% and Churchlands 11.8% (Top 3)
• 21 suburbs now have median prices in excess of $1mn
• 126 suburbs have median prices in excess of $500,000

For more details on your specific suburb's median prices, click onto aussiehome.com and choose 'suburb charting' link

Another New Year's Resolution was to update our suburb profile photos - so we've employed 2 photographers who are out and about snapping away. Already they've redone 23 suburbs, and there's hundreds more to go!

We've also upgraded the profile format, with a brand new Suburb Photo Slideshow (example : http://www.aussiehome.com/suburbs.asp and choose Cottesloe or Claremont). This is something we can also put on your own web sites; for now, as we redo the suburbs, your suburb photos on your own sites hosted by us will receive free upgrades.

If you'd like to have your suburb photographed next, please contact us; if you'd like your own customised suburb profile tours on your web site, also please contact PHIL or CHARLIE at aussiehome.com.