We are focused on transforming the way consumers buy and sell real estate online

Realty+ talks toSunny Kataria, Vice President, Real Estate, OLX India. He has been key to driving a stellar performance of the real estate category over the last few years. What prompted OLXs entry into the real estate industry? Real estate has traditionally been one of the mainstays at OLX for the last 11 years. Driven by iconic campaigns, OLX is synonymous with online classifieds in India today and is a household name. We have over 50 million monthly active users who access the platform every month across 4000+ cities in India which enables us to generate large amounts of listings in the real estate section. This in turn allows users to tap into a large selection of choices in the real estate section across commercial and residential properties. Over the years, as we grew, we decided to expand our presence in the real estate category in order to cater to the growing demand for real estate in India. One in every five users on the platform visits the real estate section, highlighting the increasing interest of consumers in buying, selling and renting properties online. There are over 1.2 Billion page views every month on the real estate category on OLX. Such large numbers of users and inventory on OLX allows us to enable better discovery for users tailored to their real estate needs. Today, real estate is among the fastest growing categories on OLX. We are focused on transforming the way consumers and sellers, buy and sell real estate online. Going forward, we are determined to use our strengths in the market to resolve the various challenges in the real estate sector in India.   What are the different services you'll provide to your real estate consumers? Following are the services we provide to our real estate consumers:

• Only marketplace which offers C2C experience in Real Estate
• Simple and effective platform -Mandatory registration, chat first and enhanced filters
• With our new app, it’s easier to access and navigate through various listings. The experience is unparalleled for consumers.
• The new app managed to bring down the posting time by 50%, and led to a 30% increase in the engagement level
• Users are able to search for listings across India instead of being limited to their own vicinity
• There are real-time security tips for buyers & sellers in the chat experience
• With the new voice messaging feature, users can quickly speak to prospective buyers/sellers without leaving the platform or sharing their phone numbers thereby ensuring better privacy of their personal details

 

• Strong play in rental accommodations

Listings across India help consumers choose between various options. The listings also offer numerous filters like type of house, gender preference for sellers and buyers and housing facilities among others that help consumers customize their search

• Unique listings and unduplicated leads

Our massive presence allows us to generate a wide variety of unduplicated listings which remains unique to OLX. This in turn enables a better discovery and search experience for users. Also users on OLX spend more time compared to any other classifieds platforms which means that users remain more engaged with the platform.

• Exclusive buyers as compared to verticals

  How do you'll ensure OLX stays ahead of competitors? With the global standard and unified product now, we use emerging technologies that enables us to serve our users better. By leveraging AI and ML we are able to understand the needs of our users in real time and address them accordingly. The new app showcases listings based on users search history and interest which means that they are always recommended real estate options that is tailored to their liking. We are present across 40+ countries and our global presence enables us to iterate on tech innovations at a much faster rate. The new app has been designed after understanding the unmet needs of our users after collecting feedback from them.  Hence at OLX we always strive to understand our consumers better and therefore, ensure that we are ahead in the business curve. Customer centricity remains key to OLX and this is reflected in the real estate section too. Customers are at the core of everything we do and therefore, people love OLX. OLX is one of the top players in the real estate housing category. Some of the differentiators are as follows:

• -OLX Group is spread across more than 40 countries
• -We’re used by a global community of 330 million every month
• -Powered by a team of 4,000 people, working on 17 brands, from 26 offices across five continents
• -Globally every single second 3 houses are listed on OLX
• -India’s largest online classifieds marketplace with 85% share
• In India we receive 6 BN monthly page views
• -Auto & Real estate are fastest growing categories
• -One fifth of our traffic comes on real estate
• -3.5 lakh + live property listings, and more than 50 lakh registered property seekers.
• -Largest platform for rentals, with more than live listings
• -There are more than 15,000 agents on the platform, who deal in buying, selling and renting properties across 100+ cities

  Future expansion plans and growth strategies We have strengthened our position in the real estate category with strong business growth witnessed in 2018. Going forward, we will start monetizing our India business soon. Business listers on OLX have also doubled their spends in 2018 vs 2017, showcasing OLX as a preferred marketing channel for the real estate industry in India. We are looking at doubling our monthly active users to 10 crore from the current 5 crore and growing our India business at least 10 times. As we look to strengthen our real estate vertical, we will scale our presence across residential and commercial properties being listed on OLX in 2019 by leveraging our strengths to address the various challenges plaguing the Indian real estate industry.