Real Estate Site Indiaproperty.com Revamped; Targets New Properties

Consim Info Pvt Ltd, the company behind BharatMatrimony.com, has relaunched its real estate classifieds site Indiaproperty.com, with a new look and focus on new residential and commercial properties. The company also announced it will invest Rs 20 crore in marketing for the website as part of its growth strategy.

Indiaproperty.com has 1.5 million registered users and witnesses 250,000 unique daily visitors. The site has a total of 600,000 properties listed.

"Our property portal business has been witnessing significant growth in alignment with the surging demand for new property. Revenues have grown over 100 per cent compared to last year for Indiaproperty.com. Our increased business focus in this area and strengthening of the senior management of Indiaproperty, should help us scale new heights this year," said Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, Consim Info Pvt Ltd. The company recently roped in Ganesh Vasudevan, who was previously Assistant Vice President & Head-National Accounts for Tata-AIG Life Insurance Co. Ltd, to head Indiaproperty.com.

Among the new features and information that has been added to the site is answers to relevant questions buyers ask once they have filtered their primary specifications of location and budget. Data on distance from the nearest hospital, school and metro stations has been included as well as videos of the property, virtual tours and information on the builder, said Vasudevan, Vice-president and Business Head, Indiaproperty.com, speaking to Techcircle.in at the unveiling of the new look of the portal. On seasonality of the real estate sector affecting business, Vasudevan said there is volatility in the real estate segment but interest from home buyers and investors continues to soar.

The company has outsourced a part of this information gathering and has set up an in-house team to verify the information. The team will also hand hold customers through the entire process of buying a property. A redesign of the logo and look of the site has been undertaken as well.

Indiaproperty.com is now signing exclusive marketing agreements with builders and agents in key geographies. The site has tied up with 250 builders and expects to have around 800 on board by the year end. With this focus on new buildings, Indiaproperty.com expects to grow relationships with builders across India by delivering customer leads to them. "We are aggressively targeting builders and developers who will look to online marketing to draw buyers as they continue to expand both luxury and budget accommodations across the country," said Vasudevan. "We have decided to increase our focus on western and northern regions, especially the NCR region which has seen a boom in number of new properties."

The company is aggressively expanding its footprint and ramping up its sales teams across India. Vasudevan does not see immediate competition from HDFCRed.com, the new online play  launched by housing finance company HDFC.  Other websites offering real estate classifieds include Times Group's MagicBricks.com, Info Edge's 99Acres.com and Makaan.com by People Group.

Consim Info Pvt. Ltd, which is backed by Yahoo! Inc., Mayfield Fund and Canaan Partners, also runs a slew of sites under Community Matrimony banner as well as EliteMatrimony.com and PrivilegeMatrimony.com.  It recently launched gifting site Matrimonygifts.com and is planning to launched another site related to matrimony soon. For more, read our interview of Janakiraman on the gifting market and his online and offline plans for the year.