INTERNATIONAL property portal Lamudi recently acquired MyProperty.ph to strengthen its position in the country’s online real-estate market.
“The partnership enables Lamudi to expand its position in the market,” Lamudi Philippines Managing Director Jacqueline van den Ende said in a news briefing recently in Makati City.
“We want to reiterate that the Philippines is a focus market for us. Our strategy is to solidify our position in the market,” Lamudi Global Transition Manager Henry Winter said. With the acquisition, van den Ende said Lamudi will become the leading property portal in the Philippine market. The companies will continue to operate individually, as both seek to grow their existing brands in the country’s thriving online-property sphere.
Lamudi Philippines and MyProperty.ph will continue to exist as separate brands, but will complement each other’s strengths. While changes at the operational level will be limited, van den Ende said the two organizations will be involved in knowledge to bring improvements to the overall customer experience for online property-seekers. Van den Ende said the fusion will also help professionalize the online real-estate market by strengthening relationships with developers and brokers’ associations, the government sector, and other industry organizations. Moreover, she said, the union will benefit buyers as it will greatly increase both the quality and quantity of property listings available online.
On the other hand, the merger will ensure that sellers, brokers and developers will boost their online marketing reach, and improve their access to quality industry data and tools. This acquisition consolidates the market to improve the value provided to all Lamudi and MyProperty.ph users, which are the hunters, real-estate brokers and developers. This added value is in terms of an increase in the number of quality listings by merging the controlled content. “We want to ensure we have the tools to deliver the highest quality and up to date listing. We’re also working on the check list which will help our customers,” van den Ende said. At the same time, the Netherlands-born van den Ende said Lamudi Philippines is also working on the technical side, like developing a sellers’ app and improving the website in content and design.
Van den Ende said the merger of the two entities is timely as online real estate industry is growing in the global arena. In developed economies, one or two real estate portals support the local real estate industry such as Zillow + Trulia, and Realtor.com in the USA; Immoscout 24 and ImmoWelt in Germany; RightMove and Zoopla in the UK.
Lamudi Philippines is part of the global Lamudi network, which covers more than 30 countries across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The local branch currently hosts more than 80,000 residential and commercial property listings.
In February this year, Lamudi Global received €16 million ($18 million) in investment to expand its operations in Asia and Latin America. In Asia, Lamudi is currently the market leader in Myanmar and Bangladesh, while the Philippines is seen as a key market for the business.