Real estate in the virtual world

To locate a property, you no longer need to have your feet on the ground. As the demand for real estate booms, the options available to customers are multiplying in the virtual world.

Real estate portals have multiplied in recent months, even as property prices have escalated by 20 to 40 per cent in all major Indian cities.

Among the first in genre is 99 acres.com, set up by job portal naukri.com in August last year. Shaadi.com, the marriage portal, is also making a foray into this segment.

Sulekha.com, a portal that caters to non-resident Indians by offering them services on classified, jobs and personals, has recently launched its property portal called Per SquareYard.com.

Subho Ray, who heads the Internet and Mobile Association of India, says that this a new and emerging segment and therefore it is difficult to put a figure to the business generated by it.

Vineet Pabreja, director-city services reach of Sulekha.com, says a lot of action in the real estate "� such as residential developments, malls, commercial centres and people moving from one city to another "� prompted the company to start its property portal.

Yash Asher, business manager of Property Mart, says that the five-month-old portal attracts a large number of people looking for rentals, since it is easier for them to find the prices of a city which is unknown to them. Property Mart is the real estate arm of matrimony portal, Bharatmatrimony. These portals have an edge over the conventional newspapers or real estate brokers since people are able to access information on properties in different cities without spending a penny.

Another large segment of the population who visits these property portals are non-resident Indians. Asher as well as Pabreja estimate that over 40 per cent of their portal visitors are Indians living in the US or Middle East. However, in terms of actual property transactions it is dominated by domestic buyers.

International real estate consultants, Thirumal Govindraj, head-Chennai operations of CB Richard Ellis says that these property portals are a good tool for Indians living abroad as it enables them to purchase property of their choice in the country.

Portals will provide information on the market values of property prices and also help to check if the customer is paying the right price of a particular property in consideration since he is able to benchmark the going price of property from previous property transactions, adds Govindraj.

It is interesting to note that these property portals are launched by companies, which already are in the internet space with their job or matrimony portals and it is seems to be a natural extension of business opportunity.

Therefore, access to information in these real estate portals are free for the time being, may be if they become popular, a fee will be charged, says as an industry observer.

These portals earn their livelihood from advertising and a commission on the deals. Banks providing home loans and housing finance companies are large advertisers on these portals.