Jason Rose

LOSSES from the REA Group’s discontinued British operations have taken the gloss from another good full-year result for online residential property advertising site realestate.com.au.

The popular property website delivered 85 per cent of Australian revenues, which increased from $121 million to $150m.

However, the sale and impairment of discontinued British operations meant a group net profit of only $946,000, compared with $22.3m last year.

The News Limited-controlled company exited its British print business in May this year and sold its online business earlier this month.

REA also exited business in Belgium and New Zealand.

While realestate.com.au is the major part of REA’s Australian business, the group also operates commercial property website realcommercial.com.au and realholidays.com.au.

EBITDA was up $62m to $83m for all three sites, but realestate.com.au was the standout performer, with revenues rising from $105m to $128m.

The figures included $34m from property developer and third-party advertisers, compared with $30m in 2008.

The overall revenue increase was in spite of a decline in advertising listings over the past 12 months, which fell from about 480,000 to just over 437,500.

REA nevertheless estimates that 95 per cent of residential agents use the site.

Chief executive and managing director Greg Ellis said realestate.com.au’s 4.5 million unique browsers meant the site had more than twice the traffic of domain.com.