Online classifieds portal Quikr to develop seperate website for realty
Buoyed by a twofold jump in property listings on its website over the past one year, online classifieds portal Quikr.com is planning to launch a separate website just for real estate. To be called www.quikrhomes.com, the new website will be launched in the next four to six weeks, Quikr CEO Pranay Chulet said.
According to the Mumbai-based company, $2.5 billion (about Rs 15,500 crore) worth of real estate transactions take place though it every month, accounting for half of the transactions for all products on the website put together. About two lakh real estate transactions get done every month through the website. The portal has about two million active real estate listings, up from about a million a year ago, said Chulet. These include listings for sale of residential units, plots and some rental accommodations.
The new website by Quikr will have listings not just for homes but also for plots and commercial spaces. To analyse the number of transactions and total value of transactions through the website, Quikr queries people who have listed properties on a regular basis and if a person decides to disable his or her listing after a sale, the website again sends a query to check whether the property sold has been transacted through Quikr or through other sources. The website has about 31% listings for apartment rentals, 27% for apartment sale, 22% for land sale and about 8% for commercial properties, as per its data.