It’s all about ‘Real Estate and Property’ honey!
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Last November we had blogged about things really hotting up in the property and real estate classifieds market in India. But what’s the future?
MagicBricks.com backed by the Times Group and it’s enormous advertising spend and reach (via its print publications), has been able to make a significant mark.
Shaadi.com’s (People Group) – 2BHK.com is still in private and would be launched soon.
99acres.com from the Naukri.com (InfoEdge) stable has been doing pretty well and so has BharatMatrimony groups’ IndiaProperty.com
Here’s an Alexa reach comparison:
A detailed shoot-out similar to our Matrimonial shoot out would be posted in the coming few weeks.
So why is it all about ‘Real Estate and Property’?
The Real Estate market is booming. Seemingly it is pretty much the best investment option currently (Though some say the boom is already over!). Basically the entire economy is booming, cities are expanding, new companies are being formed each day, every one wants a place to stay and property prices are going through the roof.
But do any of these sites have anything unique to offer? Are they actually doing well? What do the users really want?
India still doesn’t have something as big in the classifieds scene, something like what craigslist has been able to achieve.
What does a 21-25 year old want when is shifting to a big city in India?
He might want a site where he can look up places up for rent/PG or a site where he can find prospective room-mates.
Are the above listed sites catering to these needs?
eBay backed Kijiji.in is getting popular for this service at least.
What are all the property listing sites doing after a successful transaction?
Are they doing anything to retain the customers? Would the customer actually want to hang around in the site?
Integrating 3D maps etc and encouraging User Generated Content is something all can look into. Ask users to aggregate listings of their colony. Let them add photographs etc. Reward them for this.
This would be an excellent strategy especially in smaller towns.
What does a 25-29 year old want on a property, real estate site?
This is where local strategy comes into play. Someone from a small city might not really want to buy his own house at this age, but someone in Mumbai might definitely be considering this option.
Then comes the question of a 1BHK or a 2BHK?
Wouldn’t he rather talk to a Real Estate consultant than be checking out a website? This is the massive link which needs to be bridged. Targeted and personalised solutions need to be offered.
Currently it seems the big-players are out to make money rather than provide a real long term solution. Everyone is following the Job Portal-Matrimony-Real Estate track. A person needs a job and then he is looking to marry and then he will look at buying a house! So why not offer him everything?
Is it really that simple? Using social networking tools and linking these 3 on a separate platform would make a little more sense.
We’ll add more insights during our Shoot-Out between these websites.
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Interesting thoughts, i wanted to mention about the international players Redfin.com
TechCrunch covered them recently again…what these guys do is, "If you find a home you like and want to place an offer, Redfin will represent you in the buying process (they have a call center with licensed real estate professioinals to guide you). Here’s the good part: They reimburse you 2/3 of the buy-side real estate fee directly on closing."
More at http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/13/redfin-on-60-minutes-tonight/
I feel all these biggies need to focus on quality rather than quantity. After all, you only need 1 job, 1 home and 1 spouse at a time
-Navaneeth
http://www.findmyghar.com
Yeah I agree interesting thougts, wanted to highlight one more interesting property listing site i am aware of — http://www.indiaproperties.com
Check it out, no ads, no-nonsense and valuable source of comprehensive property listings…
There is another rip off of craigslist called myaarzoo.com for indian space. but it never picked up.
Looking forward to the Shoot-out between these websites.
Ravi Venkatraman
RealEstate.co.in
Property.co.in
Try this Custom Search Engine for finding flats, apartments, and houses for rent and sale in India. Makes it easy to locate something that matches your requirements.
http://indiarent.googlepages.com
Find rentals in Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Cochin, and all other towns and cities in India.
I personally find indiaproperty and makaan very useful. Indiaproperty to sell property and makaan to rent.
I heard shaadi people are also coming up with a new portal called bhk.com.
The key to the real estate classifieds business is being specific and give more options to users. If I were looking for a house in adayar or egmore, I want to look at atleast 50 options before I buy the place.
Without diversifying, if these websites can concentrate on aspect alone and develop it, they would be immensely successful. For example a site only to rent, a site only buy / sell, site only for land and plot transaction, site only for second hand houses, site for commercial real estate, exclusive site only for realtors, site for NRI buyers etc.