Domain Partners with Limepay to Allow Agents to Collect Marketing Fees Upfront

Australian property portal Domain has announced a partnership with buy-now-pay-later solutions provider Limepay which will allow Domain's agent customers to collect all marketing fees for a property upfront while giving the vendor flexibility around payment. The new product is named MarketNow Payments and will allow vendors to defer up to $25,000 worth of marketing costs.

As opposed to the property marketing situation in most other countries, Australian vendors are responsible for the payment of marketing costs (including portal listing costs) related to their sale. As such Domain's move to partner with a BNPL company makes a lot of sense in that it allows the listing agent instant access to the capital needed to pay portals meaning a smoother relationship between the two while also giving flexibility to the vendor who is more likely to have liquidity issues at the time of sale and may need to manage cash flow.

“In the case of payments, an issue we recognized was that sellers often have a limited marketing budget, but still rely heavily on widespread exposure for their listing in order to maximize the chance of a successful sale,” said Jason Pellegrino, managing director and CEO of Domain.

The Australian portal is currently rolling out MarketNow Payments across some 40 agencies and expects the product to be available nationwide in the coming months.