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Launching a property search engine in a crowded market is a brave move, but Globrix CEO Daniel Lee believes he has the leading edge. Matthew Wall reports
With forecasts for the UK housing market being decidedly mixed, this might seem a brave time to launch a property search engine. But startup Globrix has already managed to persuade Rupert Murdoch's News International to take a multi-million pound gamble on it.
Last month NI took a minority stake in Globrix, which has developed functionality that searches across multiple property sites in the UK. NI believes Globrix's disruptive technology will give it an edge in UK property advertising.
Globrix CEO Daniel Lee sees the deal as a vindication of his company's model and his own belief in search. "I've worked in the search industry for many years and this is the perfect application of that technology," he says.
Globrix doesn't host content but simply aggregates data from estate agents' websites and sends people back to those sites when they click on a property they want to view.
Unlike its aggregator rivals - RightMove, PrimeLocation, PropertyFinder and FindAProperty - Globrix doesn't charge for listings. Estate agents have nothing to lose by allowing their property portfolios to appear on Globrix but, if it proves popular, everything to gain.
You might assume that Lee and his co-founder, chief technical officer Ian Parry, would go for a cost-per-click advertising model. Not so. When it launches in the...