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PropertyTalk.co.nz is a 'not for profit' free online NZ property investor resource. It came online in September 2003 and is owned and operated by two New Zealand property investors residing in NZ.
Last September the owners were living in Melbourne and were investing in property in New Zealand. What they realised at the time was NZ lacked a website that provided independent and free information about how to invest in New Zealand. Australia on the other hand had two fantastic websites with active discussion forums where you could ask questions and get loads of responses from property investors. However, both these sites were not independently run, they were owned by individuals with business interests in other property services.
One of the owners of PropertyTalk decided it was time to build a free resource for the Kiwis and the overseas community that were investing in property in New Zealand. Having a blank canvas to work with, the two site owners decided to create what they considered the ideal - a website that had fresh content daily, was free to join and independently operated.
So that's PropertyTalk - you can subscribe to their daily NZ property news or get it via a free News Feed on your website. Articles contributed weekly by leading NZ professionals will cover areas of interest, and active discussion forums - voted NZ's most active - will keep you online for hours, or at least 25 minutes which is the duration of the average unique visitor's visit.
"Come and join us!"
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Review by: tucker (Karl)
Dated: 18th of November, 2004
Having lived in the same town for over a decade, I have been considering getting some solid ground under my feet that I actually own. Whether it has a house already on it or not is something I have yet to decide, but for now, the dirt is enough to focus on. So, off to PropertyTalk I eWander...
First impressions are not the most flattering. There is a LOT of useful information, and it all seems to be fighting for attention on the frontpage, making the 'welcome mat' look overcrowded. Thankfully the designers avoided flashing buttons, or I would run the risk of an epileptic fit every time I visited.
As an example, on the front page alone there are not 1, not 2, not even 3... but *10* 'Current News' articles! Surely that could be reduced to 'The 2 most recent...' - it made the frontpage alone over 8 screen-heights tall, and I run my screen at 1280x1024... god help you if you use 800x600 or smaller! This was a bit excessive, since there is a link to the 'Current News' section in the MENU box up the top-left.
Navigation is likewise a little awkward, with so much information being crammed in, the navpanel is overdone, and appears (to me) back to front... with the Members Login box 3 screen-heights down on the left side... as a member, I would expect it to be top-left where I can see it without having to wade through other stuff.
The tools and little gadgets are useful, but perhaps would be better served tucked away on a page of their own, instead of crowding in and around the other items. It's a bit like the kitchen at a teenage party... everyone crowding in trying to have their own conversation, while fighting for dominance.
Big bonus points for making use of an RSS feed system. As an increasingly-common feature of such 'resource' sites, it will be a feature I can easily see being very appealing. If for no other reason than it bypasses the requirement of logging on to the site itself.
Overall, I found the information I was looking for, eventually, so it really does cover a useful and otherwise unattended-to market, but it's a bit of a mission to get around in. However, I have seen sites with less content that look far worse, so bonus points for doing as well as you have done so far. Look forward to seeing the cleaned-up version.
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