Supporting local enterprise sounds easy enough but is it??
Supporting local enterprise might mean choosing IGA over Coles or buying Aldi meat instead of the cheapest mince from somewhere we have never heard of but when it comes to search engines, does local count?
In our industry in the real estate sector, there is basically three search engines that come up when you put in a property address; realestate.com.au, reiwa.com.au and domain.com.au.
It seems harmless enough to click on the top link which is more often than not realestate.com. The problem with this is that when companies like this get so big that they dominate the industry, they continue looking for ways to earn more money. What they can eventually do is then turn the ‘really great website’ into a money making factory by charging their loyal customers for services and ‘referrals’ that they have always to date received for free. As a monopolising body, it’s loyal customers have no choice to then start paying them for referrals that they have always gotten for free by advertising on their site and the opportunities for them to keep charging go on and on.
On the flip side to this, you then have bodies such as REIWA who are a membership for local agents and people in the real estate sector. REIWA employ advocates for the industry who lobby to local and state government for changes to policy so that their members and your local agents are protected. They also ensure that our local real estate agents are up-to-date on their professional development annually and that they are complying with the standards that govern the real estate sector.
REIWA are ground roots in Perth and every week there are agents meeting in Perth to work out how they can improve their service and skill set that they offer to the local market. I listen to their breakfast updates and they are genuinely interested in the seller whose house didn’t settle because of termite damage or the buyer that was outbid by an overseas investor who didn’t qualify to bid for the property in the first place.
This kind of practice is happening across a range of industries. Most of which we don’t have a choice but to use what the national or international market present to us. As a Perth resident looking up properties for sale nearly every day when booking an inspection, we have chosen to support local business. By supporting REIWA, you are not only supporting the work they do but you are supporting your local community of agents and everyone that is affiliated with it. The national websites, to my knowledge don’t give back anything to the communities that use their services and the opportunity to charge for more and more is just how they work.
This might sound like a rant but if we were more mindful of which address we click on, we might be helping to keep a little bit of control in our own backyard.
To meet your team of local, qualified inspectors that have worked for as long as REIWA.com.au has been around and inspected more than 30,000 properties in Perth since 1994, click on this link
