PropertyGuru: Yesterday Singapore today SEA tomorrow … ?
- Differences among markets in Malaysia and Singapore
- Mobile looks set to lead the next charge
IN December 2007, two expatriates in Singapore – Steve Melhuish and Jani Rautiainen – released their PropertyGuru portal, hoping to deal with what they noticed as a vacuum in the island republic which on the time did now not have any online property web sites.
That speedy modified within a few months, with a Malaysian property portal setting up a Singapore portal, even as two of the most important media groups there released online classifieds web sites with actual estate listings too.
As Melhuish remembers in our preceding installment, PropertyGuru managed to stave off the opposition and establish an 80% marketplace percentage inside 3 years. Having cemented its leadership function, and with a host of accolades and awards on its mantel, the enterprise changed into now prepared to have a look at the nearby marketplace.
Which caused one of its biggest errors, says Melhuish (%).
“In phrases of errors, one of the large ones we made became that we spent the primary four or five years constructing Singapore, then in 2011 we went into Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand – from one u . S . A . To four in twelve months.
“The whole business enterprise become established to do handiest Singapore, but we have been stretched. We clearly careworn a variety of humans on the group,” he adds. “That’s probable one of the fundamental training we learned – now not to try to run too speedy, to section it out.”
But the loopy circulate paid off – in both Indonesia and Thailand, PropertyGuru has mounted itself as the No 1 assets portal, at the same time as it's miles in a very strong No 2 function in Malaysia, which has had property portals plying the market for some years already.
The fast nearby enlargement “helped us build a platform that allowed us to develop very swiftly, which caused the funding by way of Deutsche Telekom in June, turned into one among the most important on line ivnestments in South-East Asia,” says Melhuish.
“It turned into a validation of not only the web assets marketplace right here, however additionally of what we’ve managed to reap in the closing 5 to 6 years,” he adds.
Malaysia leads regional growth
In preparing for a regional play, the enterprise researched the assets markets here, which includes those in Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, earlier than deciding on the South-East Asian markets of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
PropertyGuru entered those markets thru acquisitions -- Fullhouse.com.my in Malaysia, DDProperty.com in Thailand and Rumah.com in Indonesia.
Entering Malaysia was quite an awful lot a no-brainer, for the reason that PropertyGuru had been constructing relationships with builders here on the grounds that its inception, putting Malaysian builders in touch with Singaporean customers.
“There became lots of Malaysian visitors into Singapore, numerous Singapore site visitors into Malaysia; a whole lot of Malaysians were buying properties in Singapore, and lots of Singaporeans buying belongings in Malaysia.
“So there was this history and the relationships were already right here,” says Melhuish. “There was simplest absolutely one player, which regarded to be growing fees every six months, and we noticed there has been an opportunity for a competitor.
“We spoke to developers and retailers here and requested them what they idea folks coming in, and that they have been very supportive, announcing they desired choice,” he provides. “The retailers were enthusiastic – it turned into apparent we must pass into Malaysia next.”
Fullhouse.com.my become a Penang-primarily based property portal, which dealt in both residential and business property, although the bulk of its business become in the former, in most cases in Malaysia’s northern states.
“Coming into the marker relatively overdue, we desired a stronger footprint and a differentiated proposition, and no one else was focusing on northern Malaysia,” says Melhuish.
However, the bulk of transactions and those interested in property had been inside the extra relevant Klang Valley, so PropertyGuru began its enterprise there as properly with HomeGuru.com.my – the domain name PropertyGuru.com.my had already been obtained with the aid of a competitor, so it changed into some time before the company got that returned.
HomeGuru changed into formed out of a joint undertaking settlement with the Redberry media employer which manages a few cross-media systems. Earlier this year, PropertyGuru controlled to acquire the ‘.My’ domain and consolidated the 2 portals, rebranding it as PropertyGuru.com.my, with a workforce energy of 45 currently.
“Very quick inside the first 12 months, we controlled to join up three,500 agents,” says Melhuish. “We’ve placed ourselves to recognition on the agents, to truly help them and provide them a 2d preference, essentially.
“We’ve invested very heavily no longer only into the logo and the platform, however additionally in growing programs for the dealers,” he provides.
Different markets
One of the challenges for PropertyGuru getting into Malaysia from Singapore turned into in handling the variations among the two markets.
“The assets enterprise is constantly very neighborhood,” says Melhuish. “In Singapore, maximum of the builders paintings with two or 3 companies to promote assets, and there is less opportunity to paintings with the developers without delay.”
“Malaysian builders do a ways more themselves to sell directly, so we can work with them,” he adds.
The Malaysian market is likewise plenty extra fragmented, unlike in Singapore in which there are three or 4 very large groups with 3,000 to five,000 dealers each.
“You just want to tie up with one or two organizations, and you’ve were given the entirety,” says Melhuish. “In Malaysia, the biggest business enterprise would have about 900 dealers, so you’ve were given lots extra smaller businesses you have to paintings with. You ought to run around lots more and paintings a lot tougher.”
The agencies also are more unfold geographically, similar to the assets market itself, which adds to the need to run around lots greater.
However, the Malaysian market has one huge tremendous. “Compared to Singapore, it changed into essentially a breath of clean air clearly, to work with the groups right here because they had been plenty more open to new thoughts,” he says.
“The typical verbal exchange with Singaporean agencies over the last five years turned into ‘No, no, no.’ In Malaysia it changed into, ‘Not sure, but I’ll strive. Hmm, it works … I’ll keep on.’ It become a completely one-of-a-kind mind-set, and in phrases of doing business, extra great for us,” he adds.
Malaysia is now PropertyGuru’s 2nd largest marketplace and is the fastest growing in terms of traffic and sales. Not only are the hubs of Penang and the Klang Valley crucial, but rising rapid is the Iskandar development hub within the southern country of Johor, which sits north of Singapore.
“Singaporeans are very hungry for Malaysian property, in particular because assets in Singapore has end up crazily costly, about 5 or six times’ what it is worth in Kuala Lumpur,” says Melhuish.
In reality, PropertyGuru had just prepared a ‘Malaysia Property Show’ at the weekend of Dec 8-nine.
“Typically, we have about 1.000 people come thru the door at our Malaysian showcases, and about 15-20% will buy,” he claims.
The wide variety of transactions thru the Singapore portal continues to be very high, and considering the higher fee, Singapore will stay the leading marketplace for some time greater.
“This yr we doubled our revenues in Singapore, and we nevertheless expect 50% increase subsequent yr,” says Melhuish. “However, we assume the Malaysian marketplace to overtake Singapore inside three years.”
PropertyGuru is now the No 1 belongings portal in Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, but remains No 2 in Malaysia (click on chart to extend). When does it assume to grow to be No 1 here?
“Within two years, I wager,” says Melhuish. “The gap has closed speedy in the final 12-18 months, but there’s still an extended way to move.”
In the meantime, in phrases of its nearby play, the agency can be working on consolidating its position in the markets it’s already present in.
“I don’t see us expanding to different markets in the next 365 days. There’s extra stuff we need to do for the markets we’re in,” says Melhuish.
“We need to construct on our marketplace role, cross in addition into cellular, innovate on the side, and provide extra content material and transparency in the marketplace to assist people make property selections,” he says, including that PropertyGuru publishes approximately 600 articles every month on belongings information and research.
Mobile mayhem
Indeed, cell spells a very large possibility for the enterprise. It were anticipating the Singapore market to grow to be very saturated, but cellular has in fact given it a new hire on life and a new growth spurt.
It expects the identical within the other South-East Asian markets it operates in as well. In Singapore, forty five% of its visitors comes thru a mobile device, and that figure is 30% for Malaysia and 25% for Indonesia, a variety of this is predicted to pick out up as cellphone prices come down.
“We assume that next yr in Singapore, mobile will overtake on-line visitors, and probably by the stop of subsequent year, the identical will show up in Malaysia,” says Melhuish. “Two years ago while we released in Malaysia, it was most effective about 2% to 3%, so cellular adoption has been clearly, really rapid.”
The Android platform has been developing the fastest, he adds, although the iOS platform – together with both iPhones and iPads – currently has the biggest proportion.
“What we have been truely concerned approximately years in the past became whether cellular would cannibalize regular on-line visitors, however what we’ve seen is that it extends the usage,” he says.
According to PropertyGuru’s analytics, inside the ‘antique days,’ there might be a peak at approximately 10 o’clock on Mondays mornings as human beings settled down at their places of work to surf, and another at about 4pm because the working day wound down.
“Now, we’re additionally seeing a height at 8am, possibly as humans are going to work; and some other at 10pm, possibly after they’re in front in their TV playing with their iPads,” he says. Mobile “has stretched the whole search manner.”
The employer has evolved apps for the Apple and Android systems which allow dealers to take pictures and add them to their listings and manipulate their enquiries, all on the move. It claims there have been 60,000 downloads for the apps across Malaysia. It also launched a consumer app approximately 3 months in the past.
It also co-advanced with Microsoft Corp a Windows 8 app, but the app became rejected with the aid of the Windows Store. “I don’t recognise what’s happening there, since it was developed with Microsoft, but we’ve tweaked and re-submitted it, and expect to look it cross stay this month,” says Melhuish.
He says the employer has no on the spot plans to increase an app for the Windows Phone 8 platform. “It’s clearly about person demand, so if we see a call for for it, we will paintings on it. It is why we've a Blackberry app for Indonesia.”
“It’s exciting because many agencies we talk to invite us questions about a way to broaden their websites and what they want to do to accumulate an internet presence, but the world has moved directly to cellular,” he provides.
Market transparency
Still, some thing market it operates in and whichever structures it chooses to deliver its services via, the simple PropertyGuru principle remains the identical, says Melhuish.
“It’s approximately us assisting humans recognize the assets marketplace by using publishing assets information and research, in making the market more obvious with the aid of imparting images and maps and transport hyperlinks – the ones basic ideas are the identical.
“It’s about simply taking the entire pain out of the assets technique by means of providing as a great deal information as feasible at the belongings marketplace, on locations and on traits,” he provides.
He compares the web property international with that of conventional media, in which one or three traces of textual content – with perhaps a grainy photograph – doesn’t actually deliver the client an concept of what he or she is entering into.
With on line media, you can actually see wherein the property is honestly positioned and the way some distance it's far from transport hyperlinks and highways, test towards the asking fees of similar houses someplace else, compare houses, shortlist, or maybe create an alert so that once a particular assets of the desired fee range and preferred place turns into to be had, the person will be immediately notified.
“It just makes the whole manner amazing, notable simple,” says Melhuish.
“When you observe a person buying their first domestic, it’s their livelihood; it’s their whole lifestyles savings going into buying that property, so it may be a totally painful and horrifying system if you don’t have get admission to to the right type of information.
“So that’s what we’re trying to do -- provide control lower back to the home consumer,” he provides.
Previous Installment: PropertyGuru’s boot-strapped direction to achievement
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