Real Estate Shoot-Out: MagicBricks vs IndiaProperty vs 99acres vs Jaaydaad
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This ones been due for a long time and finally I’m putting up the WATConsult – Real Estate Shoot-Out.
Looking primarily at 99Acres.com, IndiaProperty.com and MagicBricks.com – but since People Interactive (Shaadi.com) have yet to launch 2bhk.com, we decided to include Jaaydaad.com (Not to too great an extent).
So what’s with the whole Real Estate buzz?
Let’s start with some figures –
(Via)
“The total market for real estate in India is estimated at $14 billion and is growing at the rate of 30%. By 2015, it is expected to touch $90 billion.“
The Real Estate market is being considered as the best one for investments.
Individual investors can invest in real estate through real estate mutual funds, investment trusts or simply buy some hot property themselves!
Economic Times says, “The potential for large returns has led to a large number of institutions floating real estate venture capital funds in the market. This has been helped by increase in the number of organised developers and increased transparency in the sector.”
Plus there are people who genuinely look at buying houses. Young professionals who are getting married and want to live an independent life away from parents. Students needing info about PG’s and flats. Regular people wanting info about PG’s and flats.
I would call this a must-read for all the guys working in these online property companies, rival companies, related companies, online marketing managers, traditional marketing managers, Web 1.0 believers and Web 2.0 enthusiasts etc
Feel free to share your views with us.
Well the online property classifieds market definitely has huge potential. So let’s take a look at what the top sites are up to:
Before we start off….where’s the Real Estate site from the Shaadi.com stable?
We broke the news of 2bhk.com more than a year back. Surprisingly it was the first post on WATblog!
There was some stuff about them going ahead with the name – Makaan.com, though I think they would be sticking to 2bhk.com. I’d predict a full fledged launch before Dasshera at least.
From the Times stable – comes MagicBricks.com. They launched back in May 2006, well after IndiaProperty and 99acres, but have been able to use their massive ad allowance to grab a considerable piece of this pie.
I’m sure most of you would be able to re-call the – Sir, ghar dhoondh raha hoon ad. Plus then there’s the advantage of belonging to the Times Group. Daily full page ads in Economic Times and TOI were almost regular sometime back.
Let’s take a look at their site:
In fact they did a revamp very recently.
Supposedly with a special focus now on navigation, user-friendliness and ROI for its users, clients and advertisers.
So what is the first thing I see?
2 distinct search boxes. One for buyer and one for sellers.
An agent and builder search beneath that.
165 Listings for an agent search done for the city Mumbai.
They have city specials for:
Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur, Chandigarh
Beneath that the site is a cluttered mess.
They’ve looked at concentrating on ROI only for Advertisers. Featured agents and projects and more banners and then some more.
Additional Features:
They have a blog.
Pretty good stuff – with relevant articles.
The latest being on “Should one invest in shares of a listed developer?”
Though it can be used in a much better way and would be more apt if it was hosted @ blog.magicbricks.com
Other features: Legal advice / taxation advice available on the site.
They offer virtual tours of certain property – which they charge the advertisers a bomb for!
What can be done?
Integration with their newspaper classifieds. Not only will this promote usage of the online platform – but also increase the database of MagicBricks to great heights. I don’t really like the way Times operated – where there inter-department rivalry. Had a bad experience with them, when Times Ascent tried to out-do TimesJobs.com.
As with the case of SimplyMarry and TimesJobs – if Times merges their offline and online content and get them to compliment each other, they can totally dominate the internet scene.
IndiaProperty from the BharatMatrimony stable was started less than a year ago (Around October 2006), a few months after ClickJobs.
CEO Murugavel Janakiram says, “Online property market is growing exponentially in India and it is expected that internet would take up about 10-15 per cent of the total real estate advertisement expenditure soon. In the US, 90 per cent of property buyers use internet as their primary medium of search.”
Let’s have a look at their site:
Well this snap-shot of the site sure is pleasing to the eye.
Gets cluttered and messy after this – where again they want to ensure ROI for their advertisers.
I wish there was some site which followed the ClearTrip.com route when it came to simplicity in design.
But here’s a great opportunity for an Aggregator. Something like Bixee.com for Jobs and the now defunct Sapney.com for Matrimony.
Aggregate free listings of all Real-Estate sites and provide them to your visitors at one platform. Be sure to heavily link to the big players to avoid getting sued. Better still – lets users aggregate content and pass it off as UGC.
Back to IndiaProperty:
The rest of the site has a pretty similar look to all the others. Featured listings, featured projects, featured builders etc.
Additional features and what’s nice?
A dedicated tab on the top for PG’s and Roommates – this would definitely appeal to students and PG providers.
The killer ‘Usability feature’ which really impressed me was this:
Placed right on the front page, where one can’t miss it. First time users are going to love this. It also ensures this mental guarantee amidst non net-savvy users – that if I don’t find stuff on the site, I can always use this (above feature)…
Dedicated pages for Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.
IndiaProperty was chosen by PC World as the Best Property Portal in India.
They run a blog – PropertyBytes.com
Regularly updated. In fact Ravi Damodran @ PropertyBytes ensures at least 5 posts per day. Regular updates of Real Estate news and happenings. It’s nice to see this blog not being used for advertorials much.
Other features:
A Real Estate agents search.
RSS subscription for property updates – No one else provides this.
Loan and Finance options has already been integrated with LoanWala.com. Smart move.
What else can be done? Scroll down for that.
99acres from the Naukri.com group (InfoEdge) were the first movers in the Online Property space. They’ve not been able to retain much of their advantage in the local scene but 99acres is still the most popular in the NRI market.
Their dominance in the international scene was the catalyst for MagicBricks’ hyped NRI section launch.
Let’s have a look at the site:
You need to be using a wide-screen monitor at a high resolution – else 99acres.com is going to appear extremely cluttered to you.
The search box is nice and prominent. But that’s when the clutter begins. Ads left, right and center.
There are nearly 150 Text-links on the homepage.
If these links were displayed in a contextual basis – i.e. after the user completes his initial search or chooses the city and specifications he’s interested in….then display all relevant links to him. It would definitely ensure greater no. of relevant clicks.
Indian Express had a nice article recently:
Having recently moved to Delhi, Gurinder Man Singh, a software engineer, is at present busy looking for an apartment to rent. Hoping to steer clear of property dealers and agents, he checks out a plethora of online real estate sites. But it’s back to square one.
“I found some options (online) but people who picked up the calls were all property dealers,” Singh explains. “They all wanted me to see other places.”
Basically the whole funda of providing a stress-free and simple solution to the local broker is just not happening. Sites are being used to make money off Builders.
99acres.com have dedicated pages for Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.
Other Features?
They have a ‘Contact us – if you are unable to find properties’ option. Needs positional highlighting. Showing Ads on the left hand column is providing a nice ROI to ones clients, but the focus should also remain on the users.
A prominent Advertise Your Property Now on the RHS – captures the complete essence of the business model.
Now let’s look at Jaaydaad.com
Who are they? And why have we included them in this shoot-out?
Jaaydaad.com claims to be the ‘Largest Real Estate Network’.
Jaaydaad – is not the best names to have in the Internet world. There 5-10 different ways of spelling Jaaydaad (Zaaydaad, Zaydaad, Zaidaad etc etc.)
Rediff carried an article on them last December:
Online property consultant, Jaaydaad.com, is taking up an offline network expansion as it plans to strike deals worth Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) by March next year.
The company, with projects worth around Rs 3,000 crore (Rs 30 billion), is taking the franchising route to open 600 property shops across the country.
Then there was news about Vishaka Communication bagging the Jaaydaad.com account, estimated to be around the 5 crore mark.
Well I’m not really sure how successful Jaaydaad.com have been – not many people I talked to have even heard of them. I wonder how many of the 600 property shops have been setup.
I couldn’t include Jaaydaad in most of our comparisons frankly because their website hardly gets any traffic, plus currently they seem to have a presence only up North.
A look at their website:
Not concentrating on the Search aspect much. Full of ‘featured projects’. But the site doesn’t hurt the eye. Enough white space, nice structuring.
Other features:
Legal Document assistance, Area Unit Convertor, Stamp Duty Calculator.
What can be done?
A tremendous lot! Especially with the lofty goals they’ve set for themselves.
Let’s start off with some comparisons:
Google Pagerank – The higher the better
Alexa, Compete, QuantCast rank – the lower the better
(Compete and QuantCast are more for the US market)
Backlinks – The more the merrier and better the SEO.
Alexa Indian Rank:
99acres – 42
IndiaProperty – 109
MagicBricks - 123
JaayDaad.com – 11,531
OnGaia.com – 30,713
Compete.com (Popularity in the US):
Pricing:
MagicBricks:
Basic Listing is currently free.
Premium Property Listing: Rs 843 (Single)
Featured Builder / Projects: Rs 11236
A Virtual Tour can put you back by Rs 50,000
There’s a Club Premiere option which goes as high a 1,40,000 for a month
“Maximum visibility, branding & superior positioning through a Logo on the Homepage. The Logo ensures greater visibility as it will be prominently displayed on the Homepage and it will be linked to your micro-site.”
As an advertiser, I would like to know where exactly or at least approximately do you mean when you say ‘Maximum visibility, branding & superior positioning through a Logo’.
99acres:
Basic listing: Rs 562 (Single)
Featured Project Listing – Need to request for info.
A platinum listing goes up as high as 50,000
A platinum listing for a logo on a city page costs around Rs 1 Lakh for a year.
IndiaProperty:
Featured property (For a Builder) – Price starts at Rs 1,40,000 (Need to register for further details)
Well far too many options again. I doubt a person would be able to make sense out of:
Home Sweep, City Sweep, Search Sweep, EzLaunch, eBlast…
All with different offerings, different benefits, different prices.
It makes contacting their Sales guys mandatory. At least contact numbers have been displayed prominently.
I’d advice checking the sites out independently to figure out pricing. It’s far to complicated for a normal user. Too many options, without any visual example.
Search:
‘Sion, Mumbai (For Rent)’
Why Mumbai?
It’s definitely the Real-Estate hub of India.
Why Sion?
Centrally located. Western sub-urbs were sure to have majority of the listings.
Search experience:
MagicBricks:
First step (Off the homepage) – Doesn’t allow me to search for Sion.
A query for ‘All Residential’ for ‘Rent’, with no budget concerns in Mumbai threw up 7,818 results.
After refining search and specifying Sion:
84 results. 9 July listings.
IndiaProperty:
First step (Off the homepage) – Doesn’t allow me to search for Sion and I also have to specify property category.
So I mention – Apartment and Mumbai Central. (Quite apprehensive because Mumbai Central is a Station which lies on the Western Line).
Irrelevant results. So I proceed to a locality search.
Sion finally throws up 2 results. 1 July listing.
99acres:
First step (Off the homepage) – Doesn’t allow me to search for Sion, but allows me to search in Central Mumbai suburbs.
345 results
Given the option to view via locality.
Sion – 2 results. 1 July listing.
Some ideas for the future:
- A mashup with Google Maps / Other Mapping solution providers – to pinpoint exact location of the property.
- Engage users, create a community. Let users aggregate local listings, submit photos, write reviews, tips etc. Reward them.
- Agent Referral Scheme – enable agents / brokers to build networks.
- Tag listings – search via tags.
- A stronger platform for students to interact.
- Concentrate on Search and Interactivity.
So basically I’ve compared them on a lot of parameters – now I’ll leave it to you to decide which ones the best. According to me, the best is yet to come – but if there was an urgent requirement to use one of these portals, I’d choose IndiaProperty (Look, feel, usability), followed closely by MagicBricks (Search, More listings). Though I’d still prefer a newspaper as of now.
Some quotes off the Indian Express article (My comments in italics):
“Even today, print advertisements publicise both individuals (buyers/sellers) and agents. It has more to do with one’s preference.”
- Deepali Singh (Business Head - 99acres.com)
So are you just trying to be another medium of ads? Or are you actually looking at providing some real service to the users?
“Our USP is providing information and transparency to the buyer, who would otherwise have to rely on personal connections, or a single broker/builder. We aim to provide a common platform for all users, including dealers and brokers”
- R. Sundar (President, Times Busines Solution – MagicBricks.com)
Currently it’s providing a platform just for dealers and brokers. I did not see a single ‘Requirement’ listing on your main homepage and if you are primarily looking at providing a mere classifieds portal – then a more user friendly image needs to exist, not simply portrayed.
No one seems to be in the scene for the longer run.
Some other sites worth checking out:
RealEstateOnline.in, IndiaRealEstateDirectory.com and OnGaia.com has supposedly very recently introduced some ‘path breaking online concepts For The Real Estate Industry’ .
Online classifieds site - Kijiji is also popular for property listings.
And international site which is doing some innovative stuff: Redfin.
“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.“
Read more about them here.
If you missed the Matrimonial Shoot-out, then be sure to check that out too:
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Related Links:
It’s all about ‘Real Estate and Property’ honey!
WATConsult - Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy
Very comprehensive coverage of the Indian Property portal. Couple of additional area's/sites which could have been covered are
1) NRI Services (http://nriservices.99acres.com/)
2) Sites like IndiaProperties.com (perhaps the oldest portal)
3) City Specific sites like http://nriservices.99acres.com/
Regards,
Ravi Venkatraman
http://www.RealEstate.co.in
http://www.Property.co.in
Thanks Ravi.
Tried covering the biggest players in the field. 99acres pretty much dominated the NRI services - they have a toll free no. in the US and even live chat facility i think.
City specific portals for Property - nice idea, will cover that some time later. I did mentioned the city based pages which these biggies had to offer.
indiaproperty does offer city specific pages on
subdomains , chennai.ip.com etc
In my previous post,
I meant to type
3) City Specific sites like
http://www.mumbaipropertyexchange.com/
Ravi
If you are comparing real estate sites, you should also check out http://www.bharathrentals.com/browse/all/all/all (BharathRentals.com) excellent google like highlighted search, google maps integration, neat and no annoying ads. For example when I type Sion on the first page it displayed 13 relevant listings with highlight. Search box appears on all pages
will say that not one of the best works from wat consult… more detailed comparisons such as no. of properties claimed vis a vis actual, number of home page properties etc., also yes they are working on roi for their clients rather than only clear trip based funda, since for clear trip it is the people who login pay money, but for these guys people who are advertising pay money!! clear commercials there. please build your research further on this
@ Rakesh: I'm not really sure how many blogs are there in the world which would present such a post to their readers. The research put it was as much possible in the given time - for further in depth analysis you are free to contact us for using our Web 2.0 Consulting services.
Anyways accept your views, even I feel I could have put more into this. But to get results of 'How many claimed' and 'How many really present' - is an unbelievable amount of manual work for a free report. Plus those figures are not readily available in the first place and I don't believe in calling the Corporate Communication Cel or associated PR agency to get 'figures'. It's a cut-to-cut thing…more than comparison it's a review of what's being done by the various players and what can be done.
And if you are driving a portal just for advertisers and do not look at providing the best services for your users - I'm not really sure you will succeed.
Traditional paid-classifieds have to innovate tremendously in the coming few years - or like I said, users might stick to newspapers for them.
@ Prasath: All the sites have city specific domains.
@ Ravi: I got what you were trying to mean. I've come across some interesting sites just catering to a city or to a small part of the city. It's nice in selecting a niche and looking at dominating in it.
@ Arabi - BharathRentals.com takes me to your Ruby on Rails page. I like the Google Maps mash-up, you'll need a lot of content to scale it up. Good luck with it, will keep a watch on you guys.
hi eklavya, will agree that my expectation was unrealistic for a free report! but knowing how many properties are on board each one of these is not a difficult task, search each city and total number of properties shows on top right or so….
you will have to agree that to certain extent these guys drive portals for advertisers, user interface is evolved around the saleableity index! you do not expect only classifieds based advertising solutions to drive revenues(10 crores, 100 crores, 500 crores etc.) for these 'internet mamooths" please thing
Thanks for a comprehensive report on the leading portals.
Just a note to mention about another web portal that I launched around february this year. http://www.realestate4india.com It is free to advertise properties online. Again it should have most of the features discussed in all the other portals. Check it out. You can reach me at sam@realestate4india.com
good comparison……..but it seems like a paid advertisement to me…
i do not know eklavya, if you would come back and read my post again, but nonetheless…
typically the property dealers in the heart of the city are reluctant to advertise, since they realise that their kind of properties usually get off the handle without much ado.. hence the stuff you are finding on these sites for sion are lower. you will have to factor in the fact that, like your report is free, the property search on these portals is also free.. the users do not pay if they hit on a right flat/plot. typically this vertical on www is in a evolution stage and at this point i think they can only corner the properties and ventures coming up outside the main city skirts. as and how the more and more traffic starts accepting online real estate, i am sure the sion based brokers will also feel the pressure to list themselves online. it indeed is a shade too much to expect a free property search to list all the sion delaers on oone page
ponder
@ Karan: WATblog's not something we use to make money for.
@ Rakesh: I understand and agree to some extent about your reasons for Sion not having too many entries. But that missed the broader aspect….
Bombay's not the only city right? What about smaller ones?
And builders/owners being comfortable with their local offline brokers just shows the need of penetration this medium still has to make.
Currently the sites are just acting like over-paid classified sites….while there is actually scope of providing a lot more services.
sion is a case in the point. and yes the media is only evolving, just like the blogosphere. can't be harsh to them nor to blogosphere. penetration will be as much as perceived need. can't expect the needs and perception to change in a matter of a year. let's give them time. recruiters took over a decade since launch of popular job search engines to accept them in totality
thanks
Hi
Very insightful post indeed. Thank you for mentioning OnGaia.com on your blog.
Regards,
J Ramesh Babu
OnGaia.com
Now RealEstate4India.com provides FREE! SMS to buyers and sellers. Post your opinion on this service!
Pretty valuable stats…thanks. Can also incorporate the amount of traffics for each site at a given period as comparison.
i have recently posted my flat details in http://www.propmart.com. i was told this website is promoted by real estate major Puravankaras. i have recd few enquiries. finally, propmart staffs have closed the rental for me. any real estate portal does this property finalisation services?
Pretty good looking sites. I’m amazed they rank high for an international site.
dam good..keep up the good work
Their are 100`s of new property portals coming up.. Are the biggis ready to compitate with my portal http://www.propertysensex.com and others.
its a very good and comprehensive study.Keep up the the good work But as said by Eklavya whole market dynamics are going to change with the launch of new portals like shaadi.com’s group makaan.com. So their is a need of do the whole analysis once again as all the figures are now changed. wt say?
It is really delightful to see the progress made by Magic Bricks. But to set up a match against your competitors is like a Nirma ad campagian. HL had done an ad in which they described about in detail. this ad did a lot good to nirma than a Bilon $ ad campagain. Please understand that you are good but your competitors are even better. There will be shake up but who cares!!!
Keep me posted if there is good Two bedromm flat in Mumbai harebor area.
dear Eklavya,
can u make out a report which is having details of ur personalised property portal.like
if u have ur own property web portal, then wat facility u want? wat u want in ur portals? so on..