A seismic change to how Aussies buy and sell real estate is here. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Gaye Gerard

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Image is everything. Well almost everything.

That’s what the users of Australia’s leading property address, realestate.com.au, have told the platform.

And as a result, imagery has taken centre stage as realestate.com.au launches its ‘NextGen listings’ rollout, the evolution of the online property experience, which will feature several enhancements over the next 12 months.

realestate.com.au has launched the next generation of its property listing experience.

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With more properties for sale than anywhere else, over 2.4 billion image interactions are generated from realestate.com.au’s listing pages each month. And with the latest Ipsos numbers revealing a record month of 12 million Aussies visited the site in August, realestate.com.au has been given a unique insight into what users want.

Consumers and customers will now get larger image sizes, a new image tour experience, an AI-led image data feature and stronger brand presence for agents.

IMMERSIVE IMAGERY IS KING

Immersive imagery is core to the new experience.

The first of many new feature drops includes larger and higher resolution listing images, providing consumers with a more detailed view of a property at first glance. Enhancing the property discovery experience, the new ‘Tour the Property’ feature is realestate.com.au’s most immersive media experience to date.

Exclusively available to Premiere+ customers, user testing suggests ‘Tour the Property’ will significantly increase the number of people who view every image on a listing.

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The drop also includes an AI enhanced image viewer experience which leverages machine learning models to auto-detect specific features in the full screen media view, helping to highlight special property features.

REA Group Chief Product and Audience Officer, Melina Cruickshank, said consumers expect brands to value their time, provide access to quality data and help solve pain points.

“Accelerating our membership base through personalisation is at the heart of our consumer audience strategy,” Ms Cruickshank said.

“Our members are 4.8 times more likely to submit inquiries that result in high intent leads for our customers, and our homepage delivers over 7.5 million personalised recommendations to consumers every day, helping them pick up where they left off on their property journey.

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A more dynamic real estate experience.

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“realestate.com.au listings will undergo a big evolution over the next year. The NextGen listing of the future has been designed to inspire much deeper discovery and connection and we’re excited to begin rolling out the next era of digital property experiences.”

KEY FEATURES OF NEXTGEN

+ Listing pages are at the core of the experience and realestate.com.au is rebuilding the listing detail screen from top to bottom. The first round of enhancements includes:

+ Larger listing hero image with a slick parallax animation

+ A new Tour the Property feature – a new photo and media viewing experience only available on Premier listings and Project Profiles (developer listings). In testing, this new experience increased the percentage of consumers who viewed all listing images from 7 per cent to 58 per cent

These changes are just the beginning says Melina Cruickshank, chief product and audience officer, REA Group

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+ Enhanced image lightbox with higher resolution larger images and the first Generative AI-powered feature in the core experience, in which AI will detect specific property features such as pools, solar panels, and airconditioning in listing images and add labels as captions.

+ More prominent and sticky agency branding

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