With control of realestateview.com.au now firmly entrenched, Antony Catalano’s View Media Group has rolled out its new consumer real estate portal, introducing a ‘fremium’ listing model.

Catalano – who owns VMG with Melbourne billionaire Alex Waislitz and support from Seven West Media and ANZ Bank – described the launch as “the culmination of years of hard work” since taking an equity position in realestateview.com.au business and VMG’s launch last year.

“While VMG is much more than a portal play, it's critical that we have a consumer-facing brand that will act as the front door to attract consumers and in turn allow us to offer products and services in a range of verticals across the property ecosystem,” he said.

The planned View digital real estate superstore will “play in the $300 billion adjacency categories” rather than solely focussing on the $1 billion digital property advertising market.

He says the ‘fremium’ listings model – which will allow vendors to list their properties for free, with upgrade options available to agents – is a game changer, adding that the time was right for an alternative model that addresses “the real estate industry’s concern at the continually escalating price of advertising” to come to market.

A new View portal – available via app stores and at view.com.au – offers a complete picture of the market with all established properties across the country featured, whether they’re currently for sale or not.

“That means view.com.au will showcase more than 11 million properties in Australia compared to some of the portals which feature around 140,000 properties for sale.”

Catalano likens listing all properties – whether for sale or not – to only advertising a job vacancy to those that are unemployed. “Often the best candidate is already employed and we feel the same logic can be applied in the property category and that often the best house for an individual is not currently for sale.”

Buyers will be able to express interest in properties that are not on the market, “to hopefully stimulate the market and encourage transactions that might not have otherwise occurred”.

View chief executive Toby Balazs said the company had looked at global best practice and consumer-tested a range of options, with its map-based search (which uses Nearmap) “the preferred experience”.

A marketing campaign launching on AFL Grand Final day will include TVC spots during the Grand Final broadcast of partner Channel 7 and print wraps across ACM mastheads, and will run until early December.

Developed with Melbourne agency The Monkeys, it has fun with the lengths some people go to get ahead in the property game.

Seven West Media managing director and chief executive James Warburton paid tribute to Catalano’s “experience and the expert team he has assembled”.

“Seven West Media is firmly behind Antony and the VMG team and looks forward to its success.”

Catalano says he and and Waislitz are “well on the way to forming a global-first conglomerate of proptech assets including portals, ad tech, lead generation, lead management solutions, media planning and buying, AI services, data and connections all under the one roof.

“We are bringing together a group of businesses and experts in the industry to form a true disruptor in the rapidly evolving proptech sector.”