Tues, 9th December
5-7pm

Captain Stirling Hotel, Nedlands

The usual drinks, food and fab prizes! Win a flat screen monitor! free internet suburb ads! Hampers! Printing! loads more...

RSVP on 9389 5833 with names for prize draw please

or EMAIL JO (service@aussiehome.com) or CLICK HERE

Thanks to our prize sponsors:

         

As some of you that have followed our progress these nine years will know, anything that helps 'keep big media honest' - in fact, anything that takes big media on, and protects the market from massive monopolies, gets our heart pumping.

Some of you may be thinking 'Is it time to switch off The West?' now (80% enquiries come off the web, 91% of people go first to the web to search for property). But the global phenomenon that is digital/internet media is not just restricted to classified ads. Music went digital and then online years ago, and the latest move is with TV.

Last week, iiNet announced it is making a big push into IP TV (TV you can watch just with a normal broadband connection piped in directly to your plasma). Thanks to Youtube and others, we are more comfortable watching TV online (in fact, there's great TV online - and you watch when YOU want to, not when some media boss tells you you can watch).

Just like radio morphing into podcasts, newspapers becoming blogs and 'citizen journalism' sites, so TV's future is on the web. FACT.

aussiehome.com's intention is be at the forefront of this move - so we have just concluded recording our pilot TV show (we'll show a clip at our party), and aussiehome.com TV is going to be front and centre of our new site in the New Year.

Some of you will appear in it, some of your will showcase your stories and those of your clients on it. We hope all of you will watch it - a Perth-produced real estate show.

Thanks for your positive feedback on our lead story last month (" Be Positive! That's the Message ") - and yes you can quote from these stories and take the images; just please source 'aussiehome.com' when you do so.

Following on from this, another interest rate cut tomorrow and other factors in the current marketplace, some commentators are starting to 'Call the Bottom' of the property market (at least in Perth) - some of you may or may not agree with this.

Predicting when a large, complex market is turning is perhaps the most difficult thing to call. It last turned in September 2006 (when stock started to come on after 18 months of 'tightness').

In a business sense, there may be a turning.... while total properties on aussiehome.com have continued to grow (over 9000 live now), we've also seen 350 properties a week flagged as SOLD for the past 2 weeks (whereas for 6-9 months up to mid November there were 100-150).

A sign of the buyers returning? Some realistic prices on new listings? Effects of first home buyer grants being raised, and successive and significant interest rate cuts? It's high season for real estate - is this just a blip? Or are we at the bottom?

If we are bottoming out (in terms of activity, not prices) then 2009 could see some growth in the business side of the market, albeit slowly at first. Some people believe there is still some more bad news to come... possibly so; however if we see more sales across our site as we have recently, we may look back at mid November 2008 and see that that was indeed the bottom.

What do you think? Is the property market bottoming out?

Take our Online Poll below...>

December 6th 1999 saw the launch of the world's first interactive map-based property portal (web site) right here in Perth, WA - www.aussiehome.com

We were pioneers in the sense that we placed properties ON maps ON the Internet, and you could click on them, extract information with a roll over of your mouse and then go through to the property page. This innovation won us the Asia-Pacific IT Award in May the following year for the best e-commerce innovation. In 2002, the same Awards gave us 'IT Business of the Year' and the 'People's Choice Award'.

Nine years - that's a lifetime in the Internet! As we enter our 10th year we will be bringing forth radical changes to the web site and how it operates. Not only will we pioneer a real estate themed TV show, we will have a complete new design of the site, a new logo, incorporate blogs and real estate agent Q&A's (your chance to contribute for free, and raise your profile in your area). ALSO - look out for our 'Insight' newsletter in the mail this week.

2009 is going to be exciting, as the move online gathers apace and traditional media scramble to catch up. Thanks to you all for your most wonderful support these last 9 years - here's to another year, here's to the festive season and the New Year.

Here's to YOU, our clients; here's to the wonderful staff at aussiehome.com; our fantastic suppliers (Optima, Quality Press, Netway, M-Design, Visual Intent) and friends...