The Australian off-plan portal Urban.com.au has today announced its acquisition of niche news website Property Observer. According to a release on the company’s site, the acquisition of the news platform will provide an additional 200,000 unique monthly users to the portal with the redirect from the Property Observer domain to that of Urban.com.au already effective. Some 36,000 back-cataloged articles focussing on the Australian property market will now be available as a resource for users and add value and context to property searches.
Property Observer was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Chancellor while at Eric Beecher’s Private Media and according to today’s release is the #1 source of investment news down under. As for the purchaser, Urban.com.au started life as a blog and news hub before being converted into a specialist new-homes portal by entrepreneurs Mike Bird and George Glover when they bought the company in 2018. Used by developers and home hunters alike Urban currently has information on some 10,000 housing developments across Australia.
Speaking about his company’s acquisition CEO Mike Bird said:
“Our acquisition of Property Observer brings together a leading property news site with Australia’s largest dedicated off-the-plan property portal to further empower our audience with unique insights on the new development landscape, while delivering national editorial coverage of the off-the-plan market.”
We have seen property portals buying up data companies, marketing companies and adjacent utility companies to improve existing products and get closer to the transaction, but this might be the first instance of a portal company buying up a news site to improve the resources available for its investor visitors. The addition of 36,000 articles of original content will doubtless improve the portal’s SEO as well.
