There's no doubt that the use of the Internet has revolutionised the residential property market, with both buyers and sellers of homes making increasing use of this medium and with growing success, says Dr Andrew Golding, CE of South Africa's largest independent real estate company, Pam Golding Properties (PGP).

In 1995 PGP was the first company in South Africa to launch a commercial website - since then it has sold over R361 million's worth of properties via its own innovative website, with some homes even sold 'site unseen' ie without the buyers having actually visited the property. PGP's sales via the Internet really took off in 2000 (calendar year), then more than doubled in 2001 and in 2002 represented approximately R175.1 million in sales - more than treble the year before. The company's sales via the Internet for the period January to July 2003 already stand at R103.6 million.

Says Dr Golding: "We are now averaging approximately 6.9 million hits on our website per month, with some 90 000 visitors - of whom a third ie approximately 30 000 are unique visitors. The significance of this is best brought home by illustrating that this equates to over 1 000 different people visiting the PGP website each day. Interestingly about half of these are from outside South Africa, underlining the growing importance and recognition of our brand globally.

"Some of our more recent innovations include a 'My Portfolio' feature, which allows visitors to save their searches and make notes about their requirements with total privacy, as well as the new 'area pages', which provide informative overviews of various cities, suburbs and regions and which are of tremendous use to those looking for properties in areas unfamiliar to them."

Adds Dr Golding: "Of particular use - especially to overseas buyers - are our custom-designed 'virtual tours' that provide a series of 360 degree panoramas at fast download times, allowing visitors to 'walk through' proper ties at their convenience."

Simon Gibb, PGP's IT manager, says new listings of properties being marketed by the company are also increasingly rapidly. "For example, in July 2001 PGP had 4 818 properties listed on its website, which increased by 20 percent in 2002 and then a further 26 percent in 2003 to over 7 200 properties. Around 1 500 of these listings are new every month as the stock is turned. This becomes even more meaningful when one bears in mind that the company sells approximately 10 000 properties per annum.

"In fact in June this year alone we added 1 908 new properties to our listings, while 650 prospective buyers made use of the 'My Portfolio' feature, and 3002 interested buyers sent e-mail requests that were forwarded to 145 PGP offices in regard to specific properties. Eighty-two percent of these were for homes to purchase with the balance for long and short-term residential rentals.

"An interesting trend is the significant growth in properties listed in the Boland & Overberg region of the Western Cape and in Gauteng - which are now virtually on a par with the number of properties listed in the metropole area of the Western Cape. These are followed by homes in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape, Garden Route, Mpumalanga, Free State, Limpopo and other Southern African countries."

Gibb says while the spread of enquiries is always for homes across all regions around the country - and changes constantly, some of the most popular areas over a recent 30-day period were: Somerset West, Bellville, Gordon's Bay, Camp's Bay, Claremont and Stellenbosch in the Western Cape; Sunninghill, Ferndale, Benoni, Garsfontein, Fourways and Parklands in Gauteng; Knysna, Mossel Bay, George, Still Bay, East London and Hermanus in the Eastern Cape and Garden Route; and Pennington, Pietermaritzburg, Midlands, Howick and Ballito in KwaZulu-Natal.

PGP's electronic newsletter is also growing rapidly in popularity among Internet users who subscribe to it through the PGP website. Distribution is up from 2 319 recipients in December 2002 to 3696 in June 2003 and currently stands at 4 000 in August 2003. An example of its huge readership value is the fact that it's not uncommon for a new development being marketed by PGP to elicit around 30 requests for further information directly as a result of its e-newsletter.

Ends

Issued by Gaye de Villiers

Tel: 021 6837788 or 083 325 1939

On behalf of Pam Golding Properties