Although we are approaching the end of September, temperatures do not seem intent on dropping in the short term ... the same can be said of the "digital real estate market," which has seen "assemblages" ( to use a term in common use in this 2020 ) of software houses and portals in recent months that foreshadow a certainly effervescent future for the digital real estate sector and real estate agents.
Following the recent acquisition of Gestim.it and Miogest.com management systems by real estate portal Idalista.it
it is news today that the fund already owner of the latter portal( €1.3 billion purchase value), has finalized the acquisition of Casa.it as well.
The fund in question is EQT IX, a subsidiary of the investment fund EQT international company that can count on raising 62 billion euros and has 40 MLD of assets under management through 19 other funds, as well as 159,000 employees and sales totaling 27 billion.
Staggering numbers that make you realize the importance and value of the data that we real estate agents collect and input into the world wide web every day.
Understanding these dynamics is very important and makes us realize that the famous evergreen catchphrase "let's put up 100 € each and make our own real estate agent portal" cannot make sense against companies that have 3 times the number of EMPLOYEES than Italian licensed real estate agents in Italy, engaged, however, in neighborhood fights and overriding the assignment of the neighboring agency.
The movements on the chessboard are becoming increasingly clear: a duopoly consisting of the idealist/casa.it coalition on the one hand and Carlo Giordano's blue portal on the other is clearly emerging in the future of real estate agent service resellers.
Who will come out on top? What will be the consequences?
In recent years, idealista and casa.it have had significantly lower price lists for us real estate agents than imm.it, which counted on its strength as No.1 in the real estate market ( as it plays in its TV commercials ), how long will this last? And plausible to foresee an increase in prices and services for us users? Will "sìor paron" want to have more income from these acquisitions but without making investments? We shall see...
Our role always remains that of pawns, (whether black or white) perpetually self-excluded from the game of data management, in which, unfortunately, we can no longer participate at the national level.
What to do then?
The one thing we can still fight on is the micro-area incisiveness, the palm-to-palm knowledge of the territory that we have acquired by doing the famous "door-to-door" and garrisoning our area of responsibility. But to do that requires the ability and willingness to collect that data and manage it, an ability that few are acquiring and exploiting.
Source: idealist buys management
Source: homebuying.co.uk
