Apartment Register and Urban.com.au - it's just the beginning

Apartment Register and Urban.com.au - it's just the beginning
Mark BaljakDecember 6, 2014

A joint venture between Alamar AV Communications Pty Ltd, publisher of Urban.com.au and My Real Estate Mate takes effect today with the latter's Apartment Register platform now a permanent feature on Urban.com.au. The joint venture will operate for the express purpose of allowing those who register to hold first priority pick of new apartment developments, gain and attend exclusive previews for apartment projects prior to public launch and tailor their choice of apartments to personal parameters such as location, price and floor plan layout.

Formerly Executive Director of Apartments for a large Melbourne-based real estate firm, My Real Estate Mate and Apartment Register principal Cameron Clarke spearheads the team which holds all the necessary accreditation to help any prospective buyer make an informed choice according to their personal criteria. With the backing of many of Melbourne's most prominent developers, Apartment Register is now an easy and highly efficient first choice option for apartment buyers to utilise.

What it means for the apartment buyer

Feedback over Urban.com.au's social media platforms and messages by website members point toward local buyers often missing out on their apartment of choice due to the intense competition from international and channel sales. The joint venture between Urban.com.au and Apartment Register seeks to empower the prospective apartment buyer at the most earliest stage possible.

Quite simply the joint venture will bring together both members respective strengths. Urban.com.au's greatest asset, its comprehensive project database listing near on 650 apartment developments from planning to construction will now have a qualified, accredited means by which readers will be able to register their interest and the Apartment Register team will then take over the apartment sourcing and sales process.

In this way Apartment Register via Urban.com.au will introduce a new method by which the buyer will on many occasions not need to wait until a select project reaches retail or public sales, but rather take the initiative and seek an apartment and/or project(s) out prior to their reaching public sales, with the intent of securing their desired property according to their criteria.

On top of the generic sign up form, Apartment Register will also have exclusive access to pre-sale campaigns, with a number of initial projects in which Apartment Register has secured pre-sales rights due to appear on Urban.com.au in the coming weeks and months.

How to register

Simply click on any of the prominent Apartment Register ads on Urban.com.au or head directly to the Urban.com.au's Apartment Register page and complete the required fields.

In addition to the suburb of interest, those wishing to register are urged to utilise the Question & Further Information field. According to My Real Estate Mate, preliminary enquiries have noted preferences such as budget range, suburb, apartment orientation and preferred level of occupation, apartment layout/square metreage and preferred year of completion.

The more information and/or preferences listed, the greater the chance the team at My Real Estate Mate will find the apartment you desire. Upon submitting the form on Urban.com.au, the data is transmitted securely to the My Real Estate Mate platform and the Apartment Register team then takes over the personalised research and sales process.

The Developer's Advantage

Apartment Register also opens up a myriad of possibilities for developers. For instance should a developer be looking to purchase a site or be poised to take a project to market, they can draw upon the knowledge accumulated via Apartment Register to tailor their site/project format to what the individual or aggregated market currently desires, i.e. gaining product opinion prior to design.

This credible knowledge base accumulated by Apartment Register is matched by Urban.com.au's industry leading project database which allows the public and prospective apartment purchasers to track new projects from the planning assessment stage.

An industry perspective

The Apartment Register network is supported by over 300 Australian and International City websites funneling prospective buyers researching Melbourne property to the platform. In this regard Urban.com.au today joins the Apartment Register network.

Urban.com.au's project database attracts a diverse audience and thanks to 12 months of user surveys conducted by Effective Measure, we know that 25% of all unique visits are buyers conducting research to buy apartments. We have always been about continuous improvement and Alamar AV Communications Pty Ltd is delighted to have entered into a joint venture with My Real Estate Mate which we believe will suit this sizable audience segment well over the long-term.

It must be noted that the service offering from an Urban.com.au perspective will cover the lead generation from the main Apartment Register page and may include individual project registration forms where My Real Estate Mate has exclusive pre-sale rights.

Our Project Launch and Database Upgrade packages remain outside the joint venture we are announcing today and the product suite has been tweaked to include the removal of Apartment Register ads when a developer or sales agent independently upgrades a listing on Urban.com.au.

Developers or sales agents looking to include a new channel partner are encouraged to contact Cameron Clarke at My Real Estate Mate directly.

A broader context

Apartment Register as well as being a mainstay on Urban.com.au will also be applied the forthcoming Urban Sydney website. Due for launch early 2015, the Urban Sydney platform has been built and is currently having its initial run of content added to it with the extensive task of entering the many hundreds of apartment projects underway.

Alamar AV Communications Pty Ltd, publisher of Urban.com.au and the upcoming Urban Sydney site, is also in discussion with Brisbane interests with the prospect of Urban Brisbane firmly on the radar. Should all go to plan the intent remains to create a strong presence in Australia's three largest apartment markets, in line with industry requests and the expansion plans of our joint venture partner, My Real Estate Mate.

The joint venture with Urban.com.au is the first of a number of structural and commercial changes that will be applied to the website over the coming new year holiday period. In addition to revamping Urban.com.au's Off The Plan section highlighting the best of Melbourne's current apartment projects, changes to Urban.com.au's front page appearance will allow for easier navigation about the website.

Through extensive demographic data research, the changes are designed to cater for the increasing number of apartment buyers who view Urban.com.au in order to research their pending property acquisition.

These changes will also serve to enshrine and enhance the principles that Urban.com.au was created upon; the free and extensive aggregation of planning application data relating to Melbourne's booming apartment sector, fostering discussion in both public and industry circles relating to Melbourne's insatiable appetite for higher-density living and shining a spotlight upon the policies, infrastructure and trends that will shape the city's future.

Vires Acquirit Eundo.

Mark Baljak

Mark Baljak was a co-founder of Urban.com.au. He passed away on Thursday 8th of November 2018 after a battle with cancer. He was 37. Mark was a keen traveller, having visited all six permanently-inhabited continents and had a love of craft beer. One of his biggest passions was observing the change that has occurred in Melbourne over the past two decades. In that time he built an enormous library of photos, all taken by him, which tracked the progress of construction on building sites from across metropolitan Melbourne.

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