Australia’s two biggest portals have entered a legal dispute over their respective marketing claims. Domain has filed a claim against REA Group to the Federal Court, alleging misleading advertising, namely that realestate.com.au finds buyers for nine out of 10 properties listed on its flagship portal, realestate.com.au. The core of the dispute lies in REA Group’s assertion that its platform plays a central role in property transactions, a position Domain disputes as overstated and potentially damaging to its own market standing.
REA’s Data and Methodology
Earlier this year, REA Group released findings from its Buyer Impact Model, built on proprietary data, that “realestate.com.au attracts and engages the buyer on 9 in 10 properties listed on the platform that go on to sell. ‘Realestate.com.au helps 9 in 10 buyers find the One.'” The company detailed how its AI-powered model, powered by PropTrack, analyses billions of consumer interactions with listings and property pages on realestate.com.au and property.com.au. This data is overlaid with national property sales data to confirm which properties have sold. REA Group excluded around 20% of properties that sold without appearing on a major property portal, and viewing activity on third-party marketplaces and platforms, including Domain. REA added that the findings were independently validated by Deloitte.
At the time, Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer, Kul Singh, added: “For the first time, agents have measurable evidence to demonstrate to vendors that the sale of their home can be directly linked back to the impact of their realestate.com.au advertising campaign.” REA’s analysis covered 1 million sales over 28 months, including sales of over two hundred thousand properties claimed and tracked by owners, and over 10 billion consumer data points. The model specifically focuses on properties that sold through its platform, excluding those that transacted outside its ecosystem. This selective scope forms the basis of REA’s argument that its platform is instrumental in driving successful sales outcomes for a majority of buyers.
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Domain’s Counterclaim and Market Concerns
But rival portal operator Domain alleges “market dominance representation” that is “misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive”—and if REA’s claims are true, then Domain must only be capable of providing up to one in ten sales in Australia. Domain argues that it is “likely to suffer loss from a diminution in business” should REA continue to share these claims. The CoStar Group-owned portal demanded corrective advertising messages requiring REA Group to publicly withdraw its previous claims.
REA defended itself and shot back with its own counterclaim, suggesting that Domain has misled the market about the success of its own platform. REA cited Domain’s claims that listings with its Matterport Suite product will receive 5.5 times more listing views and 4.2 times more buyer enquiries than comparable listings without Matterport Suite. These claims are based on a tiny sample of listings that were given disproportionate national exposure across the Domain homepage earlier this year. REA’s counterargument hinges on the premise that Domain’s own marketing strategies may have inflated the perceived effectiveness of its platform, raising questions about the reliability of both parties’ data sources and interpretations.
