Onthehouse.com.au to go

Sad to see this go...was a great resource

Onthehouse set to be closed after realestateview merger deal abandoned

 

This piece of news comes as a surprise, after all the hoo-ha across multiple news platforms indicating their interest to merge to become a viable competitor to the incumbent. It's also interesting to note that no where in the article does it state the reason as to why the deal as fallen through.

 

Damn. Despite its shortfalls, I used it a lot

 

From a business standpoint it was just crazy to see that they were paying for housing data to be made available for free to consumers.

 

Well, damn.

 

No! Old website was awesome, the new website was still a good free data source...

 

And I know they had planned to float on the ASX not long ago. (I assume they went through with it?) But I figured anybody giving away data like that for free, logically my question was, where does your revenue come in?

 

Underpants.......Profit!

 

They are still listed and trading on ASX - code OTH.
According to 1/2 year results presentation they will close onthehouse.com.au website if not sold by 31st March 16. The company is not closing. In fact they should make a reasonable profit oncethey lose the cost of running the retail website.
Of course that doesn't help those of us that use the free data!

 

Yes, most of their profit is driven by their backend systems used by agents, which has been around for a long time.

The idea of giving away free data in exchange for potential advertising revenue could have been workable, but they never really looked they made any hard attempt at monetising anything else.

Shame. It wasn't great, but at least in QLD, they had access to the Government recorded price, so even though agents could play the "price withheld" game, it would have the true price available.

Some of it will be available on REA, but it will be what the agents decide to put there, and can elect to remove certain properties from the sold lists that can give a distorted picture.

 

Not dead yet, On The House just got a revised offer http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20160309/pdf/435pl7mhn7s1fh.pdf

 

finger crossed!

 

Site seems to still be alive. It estimated $10k over what a property I was researching is actually listed at. Another one was estimated at the exact top figure given in the ad and last updated 5th Sept.

Tried reading some news updates to see where it's at http://shareholders.onthehouse.com.au/Shareholder-Centre/?page=News---Announcements but it's all gibberish to me!