realestate.com.au today announced it has cracked the 1 million social brick mark⁽¹⁾ in the Fresh Start Project microsite, helping raise awareness around housing affordability for low income families.

The campaign has exceeded realestate.com.au’s expectations and reached its target in just two weeks of going live, with thousands of Australians taking part in the integrated corporate social responsibility campaign.

The campaign has been a joint partnership with Habitat for Humanity Australia, which is the world’s number one provider of housing for low income families in need.

Spokesperson for realestate.com.au Joanne Whyte indicated that support for the cause has been overwhelming, with many online users embracing the concept since the campaign went live in early October.

“Deciding to integrate Facebook into the campaign was a clever way to engage consumers who want to help make a difference in this world.  We are really pleased to see the general public get behind this cause and embrace the Fresh Start Project,” said Joanne.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to making a difference, realestate.com.au has contributed $130,000 to Habitat for Humanity Australia that will go towards building a house for a low income family, with construction commencing on 8 November 2010,” she said.

Two thousand three hundred fans have had their photos published on a ‘supporters wall’ sharing Fresh Start Project with family and friends.

Established in the United States in 1976, Habitat for Humanity is a global not-for-profit organisation with a presence in over 90 countries and has changed the lives of people all over the world building more than 400,000 houses and sheltering more than two million people in 3,500 communities including almost 100 homes in Australia.

Habitat for Humanity believes in giving people a hand up rather than a hand out by building homes in partnership with families both in Australia and overseas.  The families put in labour and a deposit, and Habitat for Humanity assists with the expertise and financing and importantly, as the no-profit loan is repaid, it goes into a revolving fund to help finance even more homes for people in need.

Habitat for Humanity’s recent projects include its work in helping rebuild homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti with the support of celebrity A-listers such as Brad Pitt, Bon Jovi, Barack and Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

Between now and 7 November 2010, members of the public keen to follow the Fresh Start Project can keep up-to-date with the latest campaign developments via realestate.com.au’s Facebook page and the microsite as the next phase of the campaign unfolds. Consumers can continue donating social bricks via the realestate.com.au home page to help raise awareness around housing affordability for low income families.

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In a press release, “realestate.com.au today announced the launch of a new microsite the freshstartproject.com.au, an interactive site which hopes to raise awareness around housing affordability for low income families.

The Fresh Start Project campaign is the latest instalment forming part of realestate.com.au’s spring activity which helps Australians get fresh start in life.

Joanne Whyte, General Manager Marketing Communications and Insights for realestate.com.au said the company was pleased to partner with Habitat for Humanity Australia, which is the world’s number one provider of housing for low income families in need.

“realestate.com.au will donate $130,000 which will go towards building a safe and secure home for a family in need and help realise their dream of home ownership through low cost housing,” she said.

“The Fresh Start Project is a fully integrated digital campaign which leverages our social media assets using Facebook as the main channel to help spread the word and garner support from socially conscious people,” she said.

The partnership will enable realestate.com.au consumers and Facebook fans to spread the word about this worthy cause by collecting social bricks as they visit the realestate.com.au site.

The bricks will help build a supporters wall to acknowledge the contribution from realestate.com.au. Participant photos will be published via a virtual montage and people can share their involvement with family and friends.

In early November, realestate.com.au and Habitat for Humanity Australia will announce the lucky family who will be given the home. Together with volunteers and members of the community, the family will help build the home over a two-week period, with Fresh Start Project fans able to track the progress of the build via the microsite.

Habitat for Humanity Australia CEO Jo Brennan said: “We’re deeply grateful for the support of realestate.com.au and its desire to help house a family in real need in Australia.”

“We rely on individuals and corporate Australia to make homes a reality for so many low income families here and around the world, so we’re looking forward to seeing the number of bricks build up on the realestate.com.au site and of course seeing the supporters of Fresh Start Project on Facebook,” she said.

Habitat for Humanity is a global not-for-profit organisation with a presence in over 90 countries and has changed the lives of people all over the world building more than 400,000 houses and sheltering more than two million people in 3,500 communities.

Established in the United States in 1976, Habitat for Humanity’s recent projects include its work in helping rebuild homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in Haiti with the support of celebrity A-listers such as Brad Pitt, Bon Jovi, Barack and Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.

realestate.com.au has worked closely with digital agency Amnesia Razorfish to bring the campaign to life alongside media agency Starcom. The campaign follows the recent launch of realestate.com.au’s TVC and advertising campaign which went live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane recently.”

This time around it looks like Realestate.com.au and Amnesia Razorfish have put together a good marketing campaign (alongside Starcom).

It’s a massive improvement on their House Hunter Video campaign disaster earlier in the year which ended up being labelled as “REA suffers from Amnesia”.

Plus, it”s good to see that they”ve used an introduction video from CEO Greg Ellis to add a more personalised approach to the whole initiative. (should help them win some points amongst the Facebook community and Gen Y”s).

PS: If you haven”t seen realestate.com.au’s TVC mentioned within the press release you can view it here…

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Last week I presented at A Morning with Australia and New Zealand’s Top Agents and had the absolute pleasure to catch up with my friend Julie Ryan, whom I regard as one of the world”s best real estate trainers.

When connecting with Julie on LinkedIn, I happened to notice one of her recent presentations was available on SlideShare and thought I”d share some of Julie”s insights with GenYre = energy readers.

Whilst I appreciate that the SlideShare presentation isn”t anywhere near as effective as it would be with Julie presenting it, I believe that you can still gain a lot out of her presentation slides.

There are some great points that Julie shares about appearing different in your market place. She is also a big believer in using the internet more effectively to help build your profile and make the right first impression.

Julie has also included some very interesting stats about Social Media and a great insight into Dominant Buyer Motives,  plus lots more…

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Aside from what Google have been doing with real estate on Google Maps, there is a real ‘buzz’ happening in the world of email, because Google has just released Google Buzz.

Recently, I”ve met with a number of progressive agencies who are using a range of Google’s free tools & applications for their office intranet.

These agents are storing documents, brochures & promotional material in Google Docs. Using Google’s calender for scheduling appointments and Google reader for keeping up to date with what’s happening within their marketplace & real estate in general.

Agents can still run an email adresses linked to the domain name of their company website, but I see a time where agents will use a @gmail.com address instead.

When you look at “Buzz” you”ll see that Google has now developed a whole new user experience with email.

I believe that the sharing, mobility, social networking capabilities and the whole end user experience of “Buzz” will start a surge of users over to gmail, which in turn will provide a greater opportunity for agents to network and build extensive, engaging databases.

When you look at what gmail has transformed into, it’s no wonder some IT consultants are suggesting agents use Google’s tools to help run a real estate agency, rather than wasting money trying to reinvent the wheel.

I”m interested to hear what the Gen Y agents think about it & whether they would switch to gmail or not? Or alternatively, whether they already have gmail & what the think about “Buzz”.

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The weekly newsletter we put out from www.kirstydunphey.com is currently circulating to over 5,000 people weekly. We

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