 "Housing.com eyes M&A in data research")
"We are in discussions with three or four data research firms in the national capital region and other areas for a possible acquisition. We want to strengthen our back end," Housing.com Co-founder Advitiya Sharma said.
The firm has chalked out aggressive expansion plans after receiving $100 million from Japan's SoftBank last December. Till now it has received a total funding of $120 million. The company is entering new segments related to home shifting such as movers and packers, interior design, legal agreements and others. It will also expand its base to 200 cities from the current 50.
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"In the next couple of quarters, we will enter into exclusive partnerships with firms offering services for shifting houses. We might also launch our own brand of movers and packers," he said.
Housing.com has tied up with Tata Housing to sell properties in eight projects. As part of the partnership for the Tata National Home Buying Week over February 11-18, Tata properties in Pune, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Chennai and Gurgaon will be sold through Housing.com, with prices ranging from Rs 24.7 lakh to Rs 2.31 crore.
In November 2014, Housing.com partnered with Tata Value Homes, which offers affordable homes and had sold 115 homes worth Rs 60 crore in just five days. The portal would seek more such partnerships to push online sales, Sharma said.
Experts expect the online space in the real estate market will be the next big thing and more purchases will occur there.
Housing.com has pioneered virtual tours of properties for rent and sale where users can see the pictures of every room in a house. Besides, a three-dimensional rendering of apartments in new projects by developers provides buyers a picture of the site and its vicinity. Online real estate portals like Housing.com, Commonfloor.com, Proptiger and Grabhouse have grown rapidly on funding from private equity investors.
The portals are fast becoming a tool for conducting research on buying, selling and leasing residential or commercial properties with a more focused approach and better after-sales services. The portals also offer various value-added services to help buyers and sellers in every aspect of the transaction, besides documentation, registration and legal services.
Citing industry estimates from ComScore, a Google spokesperson recently said about 5.5 million people looked for real estate online in India. And if one took into account mobile Internet users, the number would go up to 10-11 million, he added. According to Google India, most Internet searches for real estate are from Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida (national capital region), Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
However, the real estate market is going through a slowdown with dipping sales and launches.