Aussie New Build Portal Urban.com.au Acquires Homebuilder Comparison Site Homeshelf

The entrepreneurs behind the Australian off-plan real estate portal Urban.com.au have made their third acquisition in five years agreeing a deal to buy the homebuilder comparison site Homeshelf.com.au.

Homeshelf has profiles of more than 1,000 home builders across Australia and allows prospective buyers to compare accreditations, completed build quality, floor plans and design options. The site also acts as a marketplace and lead generator for homebuilders.

Business News Australia reports that Homeshelf founder, Samara Amadi will not be remaining with the business. Financial details of the deal have not been made public.

The acquisition will give Urban.com.au and its newly formed parent company, New Home Network a greater footprint in the sector and fuel its 'Matter Fact' service—a data intelligence product providing consumer insights for developers.

Speaking of the acquisition, Urban.com.au's CEO Mike Bird said:

“The challenges consumers face in the off-the-plan apartment and new home builder markets are very different to that of the established residential market and require a focused user experience to address the issues."

“Apartment developers and home builders are alike in that they’re sophisticated buyers of marketing and advertising products and often the best marketing teams will track their cost to generate a sale down to the dollar.

“We have been successfully helping hundreds of developers reduce their cost of sale of off the plan apartments and now we’re applying a similar approach to support the home builder market.”

Homeshelf is the latest acquisition for Bird and his business partner George Glover. The pair started founded Social Garden, a real estate marketing agency in 2013 before purchasing the Urban.Melbourne property blog which they converted into a marketplace. The acquisition of Urban was followed up in 2021 with a deal to acquire the real estate news publication Property Observer.

Bird, who is set to present at PPW Bangkok next week, said that he and Glover are still looking at other acquisition targets as they bid to grow the business further despite a "tanking" Australian new builds sector.