Title :REIWA looks to merge with Aussiehome.com Created : 2010-05-18 17:01:44.0 Author Name :Communications 18 May 2010 The Real Estate Institute of Western Australia is hoping to secure a merger deal with aussiehome.com, subject to a satisfactory due diligence test being met. In the mean time, Charlie Gunningham has been appointed as the new manager of reiwa.com and will oversee the Institute's website and related services. Mr Gunningham is the founder of aussiehome.com, a successful niche website for real estate listings with a strong presence in Perth's western suburbs. The company is also renowned for web development and customer relationships. REIWA CEO, Anne Arnold, said she was delighted that Mr Gunningham was coming on board and looked forward to his expertise and entrepreneurial skills taking reiwa.com to the next level. "Charlie is well known, well liked and widely respected in the industry. He's passionate about the internet and making the best use of it for customers and clients," Mrs Arnold said. Mrs Arnold said Charlie's appointment begins a new era at REIWA as the Institute looks to improve its portal and to provide better personalised websites to members. Mr Gunningham said that his appointment will mean that, if approved, aussiehome.com will merge with reiwa.com on 1 July and over time staff from aussiehome will move across to REIWA to continue their work there. "Under the proposal, the aussiehome website will remain as it is for the short term, and then we hope to merge the best elements of both sites ensuring that all the traffic and search engine benefits come together into one larger, more advanced West Australian real estate site at reiwa.com," Mr Gunningham said. Mrs Arnold said a key benefit of the plan was that it would all be owned and run by the industry for the industry, and assured existing clients that all the personalised services they currently enjoyed from aussiehome.com would continue uninterrupted. "Over the following year and beyond we plan to combine all of these services with those offered by REIWA, to bring members an even greater array of products. "This is a major strategic move by the two parties which believe that competition in the real estate portal space will be enhanced by this relationship and that clients and members will be direct beneficiaries of a combined site," Mrs Arnold said.