Funda Ireland to cease operations

EKRIUQ

Hot off the press get got my email a few moments ago



Important Announcement

To: XXXXXX Auctioneers, Valuers & Estate Agents


Funda Ireland to cease operations

It is with deepest regret that I write to inform you that Funda Ireland hasdecided to cease operations. The company's staff and the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI) were informed on Friday last (29th June).

The decision to wind down Funda Ireland was taken after a major review of Funda group business strategy in the last two months. After detailed analysis of the market and competitive conditions in Ireland it was decided that the market-leading position required to make the business financially viable could not be achieved within the targeted timeframe; and that Funda Ireland's parent company, Funda NV could realise higher returns from investment in new opportunities in its established markets.

I would like to pay tribute to the company's employees who worked tirelessly to implement our business plan and helped the company become one of the country's top three online property websites within months of its launch. I am also very grateful to the IAVI and its members, without whose support this could not have been achieved.

The funda.ie website will remain active in the short term to minimize any inconvenience to the estate agents who are using it exclusively.

Funda can recommend the following alternative websites to advertise property for sale or to let moving forward:


· www.daft.ie

· www.myhome.ie

· www.sales.ie

· www.let.ie

· www.huntforproperty.ie

· www.findahome.ie

· www.sherlockhomes.ie

· www.overseas.ie

· www.estateagent.ie

· www.4overseas.com

· www.commercial.ie

· www.property.ie

· www.propertynews.com

· www.propertysteps.ie

· www.mygaff.ie

· www.yourchoice.ie

· www.baile.ie

· www.primelocation.com

· www.rightmove.co.uk (northern Ireland)

· www.findaproperty.com (northern Ireland)

I will be available to you either by phone or email if you have any questions or need help in utilising one of the alternative property listing websites in the Irish market.

Regards,
Ronan Higgins, CEO

Funda Ireland

My own opinion was they were very over priced in a sensitive market and failed to attract enought estate agents and they needed an extentive marketing campaign to get the message out.

IAVI closed there website realestate.ie for this Funda company wonder what they'll do now

godtabh

BingoBongo wrote:

Hot off the press get got my email a few moments ago



Important Announcement

To: XXXXXX Auctioneers, Valuers & Estate Agents


Funda Ireland to cease operations

It is with deepest regret that I write to inform you that Funda Ireland hasdecided to cease operations. The company's staff and the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI) were informed on Friday last (29th June).

The decision to wind down Funda Ireland was taken after a major review of Funda group business strategy in the last two months. After detailed analysis of the market and competitive conditions in Ireland it was decided that the market-leading position required to make the business financially viable could not be achieved within the targeted timeframe; and that Funda Ireland's parent company, Funda NV could realise higher returns from investment in new opportunities in its established markets.

I would like to pay tribute to the company's employees who worked tirelessly to implement our business plan and helped the company become one of the country's top three online property websites within months of its launch. I am also very grateful to the IAVI and its members, without whose support this could not have been achieved.

The funda.ie website will remain active in the short term to minimize any inconvenience to the estate agents who are using it exclusively.

Funda can recommend the following alternative websites to advertise property for sale or to let moving forward:


· www.daft.ie

· www.myhome.ie

· www.sales.ie

· www.let.ie

· www.huntforproperty.ie

· www.findahome.ie

· www.sherlockhomes.ie

· www.overseas.ie

· www.estateagent.ie

· www.4overseas.com

· www.commercial.ie

· www.property.ie

· www.propertynews.com

· www.propertysteps.ie

· www.mygaff.ie

· www.yourchoice.ie

· www.baile.ie

· www.primelocation.com

· www.rightmove.co.uk (northern Ireland)

· www.findaproperty.com (northern Ireland)

I will be available to you either by phone or email if you have any questions or need help in utilising one of the alternative property listing websites in the Irish market.

Regards,
Ronan Higgins, CEO

Funda Ireland

My own opinion was they were very over priced in a sensitive market and failed to attract enought estate agents and they needed an extentive marketing campaign to get the message out.

IAVI closed there website realestate.ie for this Funda company wonder what they'll do now

Never heard of them. Where they a web site like daft for renting and selling

jdivision

A bit yeah. They had a TV ad with two peacocks in it. The market is dominated by myhome.ie and to a lesser extent Daft. The Indo's finding it hard to muscle in with their one so no surprise funda weren't getting any business.

Gareth37

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0704/funda.html

They spent millions on advertisements. 6 months.

Next thing we will see is auctioneers going out of business. A sign of the times. Fierce competition for auctioneers ahead and for the property websites etc and i heard privateseller or sell it yourself (cant remember which) is increasing by 100% per month:eek: . Changing times...

patrickolee

It was a pretty crap website to be honest. Had very few properties on it and came far too late to the market.

Gareth37

patrickolee wrote:

It was a pretty crap website to be honest. Had very few properties on it and came far too late to the market.

Yes, it came too late and was very "techie". I do some programming and I found it tough going. I think Daft will be the next to hit hard times and myhome and the private seller sites will take over.

patrickolee

Daft and myhome have so much cash behind them they can keep going without a problem. Doesn't cost much to run a website, relative to getting it known (ie advertising).

robd

Gareth37 wrote:

Yes, it came too late and was very "techie". I do some programming and I found it tough going. I think Daft will be the next to hit hard times and myhome and the private seller sites will take over.

I seriously doubt that.

Myhome has over 20,000 houses advertised on it at the moment. They charge approx €300 a pop. The majority of people looking to buy a house do so through Myhome. The Irish Times own them. As pointed out by another poster the cost of running a site is not that high certainly compared to printing and distributing a newspaper its negligible.

Daft has over 40,000 houses advertised for sale and 5000 for rent. Daft is the main site to look at for renting a place or for buying at the cheaper end of the market in Dublin or for buying outside of Dublin. The also advertise house shares and foreign properties. Daft was developed as a college project and still run by the same guys. This cost very little to develop over the years and they now have a big brand. AFAIK they are the most hit site in the country.

Both Myhome and Daft are powerful brands at this stage rather than just websites. Hence why Funda could not get into the market. They couldn't get a good enough brand to compete with these guys.

Gareth37

robd wrote:

They charge approx €300 a pop.

Is this true? :eek:

Glenbhoy

Gareth37 wrote:

Is this true? :eek:

Yeah, they charge somewhere around 250+VAT - from memory, access to the site is restricted to estate agents though - who then charge the client that as outlay.

blorg

Daft are the biggest site in the country and I reckon run very economically, I'd bet on them before myhome.ie. The latter has failed to get into the rental market while Daft managed to successfully establish a foothold in sales.

The fact that myhome.ie is limited to agents certainly does not help them compete against Daft.

EKRIUQ

Glenbhoy wrote:

They charge approx €300 a pop.

Gareth37 wrote:

Is this true? :eek:

Yes and NO

Estate agents pays a yearly sub of €1,452 every year then about €180+vat =€217 per house in the Dublin Area, Spreads the cost of the yearly sub over the houses it lists so it could cost €300 a pop.

zAbbo

madhirep wrote:

If you are looking to advertise property for rent or sale, please visit the www.yourchoice.ie (quite new) website,landlords and Estate agents can advertise unlimited properties for free of cost, i posted my rental property in Dublin west region and i got 3 responses upto now, more over it's free.

It's missing some dancing babies, and a spinning jesus.

horrendous website.

Raskolnikov

zabbo wrote:

It's missing some dancing babies, and a spinning jesus.

horrendous website.

A spinning Jesus you say? Where do I sign up?

Do-more

The cost for a private individual to advertise their house on daft.ie is €160.

A collegue was recently charged €250 in total by an EA to have his house listed on myhome, daft, funda, propertynews and eraireland. Hard to believe the EA was doing it below cost! But perhaps the EA sees it as "bread on the water".

byte

madhirep wrote:

If you are looking to Register with www.yourchoice.ie, you can do by clicking on below link and select Normal user: http://www.yourchoice.ie/Users/Registration.aspx

Are you affiliated with this site?

smdweb

Gareth37 wrote:

http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/0704/funda.html

They spent millions on advertisements. 6 months.

Next thing we will see is auctioneers going out of business. A sign of the times. Fierce competition for auctioneers ahead and for the property websites etc and i heard privateseller or sell it yourself (cant remember which) is increasing by 100% per month:eek: . Changing times...

I spotted Funda on a TV Advert about a month before they folded - spending millions on adverts , no wonder things didn't work out. Pity really as the site wasn't too bad !