LankaPropertyWeb to provide more visibility for customers with new acquisition

With the number one and two property portals coming together, Sri Lankan public can look forward to a better scale in property listings, officials say.

Early this month LankaPropertyWeb acquired lamudi.lk which brought the former into a dominant position as the leading property portal.

"We are now giving the best platform for the advertisers and the property seekers. It gives the advertisers the best visibility at this point. Also LankaPropertyWeb will get more visibility. We are now stronger," Daham Gunaratna, Founder and Managing Director LankaPropertyWeb told the Business Times.

He said now there are more advertisers. With the acquisition, LankaPropertyWeb aims to expand its reach and property portfolio to provide an enhanced service for property buyers, sellers, renters, real estate agents and others. Mr. Gunaratna said that with the combined listings of the two sites, LankaPropertyWeb will now host the largest collection of Sri Lankan property listings and will be the de-facto website for anyone searching for property in the country.

LankaPropertyWeb wasn’t actively pursuing any acquisition, Mr. Gunaratna noted adding that Lamudi had approached them initially. "It did not happen instantly. We had several rounds of discussions during several months. And last month we decided to go ahead with it," he explained.

LankaPropertyWeb has been matching property seekers with property sellers and landlords with tenants at minimum cost for the past 12 years. "This acquisition means all agents, developers and individuals who advertise with us are now able to receive more leads and buyers and tenants have more options to choose from," Mr. Gunaratna explained.

The site now will have over 25,000 listed properties, over half a million visits a month and over 70,000 leads a month for advertisers. LankaPropertyWeb saw a 61 per cent increase in the number of leads generated between the previous two years and 54 per cent advertisers stated that they sold or rented their properties through this site.

Last year the site launched two new products. 'Buyer and Seller Assistance' which provides advisory, legal and documentation work that entails buying or selling a property - making the property transaction as hassle free as possible.

'Ideal Home', a portal aimed at giving users access to all products, services and advisory for building and decorating a home was also launched in Q42018.

Mr. Gunaratna noted that this year LankaPropertyWeb is expected to see a significant growth through facilitating sales and marketing of new developments by giving developers' projects the best visibility both locally and with international investors. “This will be done through partnerships, overseas and with the website's natural international reach. Enhancing the product to provide more tools and facilities for property seekers and sellers to easily list and find property will also be a key focus this year," Mr. Gunaratna noted.

Mr. Gunaratna added that going forward if there is an opportunity which will synergise in line with LankaPropertyWeb’s business model, the company will take a look at acquiring such an entity. "But we are not actively looking at such acquisitions. We have good potential of growing organically," he added. About the property market as a whole, Mr. Gunaratna noted that there was a slowdown in the second half of last year, but now the market is picking up. "With the Value Added Tax kicking in this year, many buyers are keen to purchase property," he said.

LankaPropertyWeb was founded in 2007. Within just over a decade, the company transformed the landscape of the real estate industry by capturing and staying ahead in the market.

Leveraging technology to stay ahead in the business, LankaPropertyWeb offers its services to a clientele that was not yet tapped into in 2007 – the non-newspaper readers, the people constantly on the go, and foreigners and expats who were exploring investing in Sri Lanka, who would not have otherwise had visibility of the investment opportunities in the country.

Launched in 2013, Lamudi is a global online property portal focusing exclusively on emerging markets and is backed by German-based Rocket Internet. The platform was initially available in 30 countries including Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, with close to a million real estate listings across its global network. Lamudi launched its operations in Sri Lanka in 2014 and quickly rose to become the number two property platform in the country.