Over the last 6 months both myhome.ie and Daft.ie have been courting buyers, with an announcement early this morning that The Irish Times, who own Ireland.com, would buy MyHome.ie subject to the competition authority’s approval.
So what will The Irish Times do with it?
Will they keep the site as is, or will they try to recoup their significant investment by making it pay per view??
It may seem like an odd idea making a property portal “pay per view”, but they also made the bulk of Ireland.com only available to paid subscribers, so it wouldn’t really surprise me if they were to do something similar … Or would they?
Forking out 50 million euro on an Irish website seems a little crazy, unless you have a sound business model to back it up. Will they now try to buy out Daft.ie also?
winds says
I’d question the wisdom of making myhome.ie pay per view given some anecdotal evidence suggesting that the number of house buyers is starting to fall a little.
Lar Veale says
Does this mean the current owners, 3 of our largest estate agencies and AIB, a mortgage lender, are cashing their chips in on the Irish property market?
michele says
Lar – it’s a very valid question. If the property market is so strong and the sie’s business model viable, why are they selling up?
simon says
As they say don’t do what the banks tell you to do . Do what they do. They are selling their buildings. I think we are at the peak now.