evolve - story of housing.com

8/16/2019 Evolve - story of Housing.com

1/4

Housing – Your Way Back Home

Backdrop

Housing, a Mumbai based start-up founded by 12 IIT Bombay graduates, allows customers to

search their dream home at the power of a click The portal allows the customers to search for their dream homes based on the location, si!e, locality and price range The current network

of Housing is estimated to consist of "### brokers, co$ering %# cities pan India Backed up

by the &eries ' funding from (e)us *entures +artners, the company has added a ecision

&ciences ab, which ser$es to dri$e the insights from the collected data on the application of

Big data analytics Housing went to re$amp its Brand image in the first .uarter of 2#1% and

launched a new logo with a brand new tagline /ook 0p

Context

The Indian eal estate market is pegged at 121 Million 3 4residential at 1## Million 0&5and will continue to grow at a rate of 167 8'9 to :%; Billion 0& by the end to 2#2:

urban population will reach "## Million by

2#;#2 ise in urban per capita income> e)pected to grow ;) 432:k in 12? to 3:;k by 2:?5; 8hange in consumer beha$iours> markets are shifting to market oriented phase and

con$enience becoming a priority

@ith the unprecedented growth in e-tail sector, it is a matter of time before the shift happens

in home buying beha$iour and the maAor players will command a maAor share of the market

Housing does not position itself as an online classified portal ather its brand positioning is

to create $alue for the customers to book the homes online

+resently, Housingcom offers following ser$ices across the real estate $alue chain

ent, +9 C Hostels, Buy 4(ew proAects and esale flats5, Home oans, &er$iced

'partments, Dnline ental 'greement and Dnline Home Buying

But the future is online real estate purchases

Competition

Housing competes in the space of eal estate, one of the hottest sectors online which has

attracted a lot of attention in recent years The space is pre-occupied by the likes of

MagicBricks and EE 'cres followed by India +roperty and Makaan, which ha$e ac.uired a

larger market share owing to first mo$er ad$antage 8ommon Floor competes tete-e-tete on

the technology forefront with Housingcom

Housing?s $alue proposition is to pro$ide the customers accurate listings which are $erified

and increase accountability of online real estate as an option Housing le$eraged its usage of

9oogle maps to showcase the actual property locations and detailed listing of the amenities in


2/4

the areas To bring in more transparency, the housing representati$e $ets the photos uploaded

for the rental purposes But this feature is yet to be e)tended to buying online, which is still in

its nascent stage

Product Differentiation

Housing has launched &lice *iew

which aims to help the customers

$isualise their dream home, e$en

when the proAect is on paper and

ideology phases The illustrati$e

figures can be used by the buyers

to e)plore the proAect and browse

through the specific sections to book an apartment The $alue

creation for the customers is to

e)plore the ; rendering of e$ery

proAect and e$ery floor The portal gi$es the customers options to book the homes at a low

down payment

&lice $iew helps the customers to easily inspect the ; master plan of the proAect 's soon as

the customers locks in which proAect and the type of apartment to look at, se$eral details

regarding the built-up area, price, possession dates and a detailed payment plan appears

alongside to enhance the user e)perience

The rationale behind such a product is to allow the users to make an informed choice

8onsidering the purchase of homes, as a high in$ol$ement product, users are sceptical to

make the decisions online

The maAor impediments identified in online real estate purchasing are lack of credibility and

lack of trust The users percei$e the details about the proAects to be fictitious and often

misleading which acts as a barrier to adoption of such online real estate portals This

demands the user to ha$e a site $isit before e$en considering the idea to pursue the proAect

Housing aims to create a knowledgeable user base by pro$iding them the support of Indian

eal Gstate +ortal 4IGF5 where they can be in touch with se$eral other users and interact

with e)pert for ad$ices on proAects, localities, $aastu etc

Dther such inno$ati$e product is ata &ciences ab 4&5 which aims to bring insights

which dri$e the real estate market & continuously churns data and algorithms to map out

the trends, new features and tools of future to ease the process for the consumers &e$eral

such features are e)plained below=

1 Traffic Flux it shows the most preferred destination ie cities searched by the

customers for their future li$ing Inbound shows which cities are attracting the traffic

while the outbound shows the number of urban dwellers choice of cities


3/4

2 Heat Maps - shows the demand trends for buy and rent in specific areas of the cities

The red areas are demarcated as high on demand and green areas as low on demand; Cild Friendly !ndex demarcates the areas based on the friendliness of the society

with respect to the children

Promotion

Housing engaged itself in Brand Building so as to emerge as a trustworthy option in the

online real estate sector In the early 2#1%, /ook 0p campaign was launched with a budget

of 2%# crores so as to impro$e the Brand *isibility across channels and increase Brand

ecall The campaign effecti$eness can be adAudged from the fact that the traffic increased

from 11 Million to 11 Million in 6 months from anuary to 'pril The similar phase also

witnessed Housingcom e)pand the market footprint to more than %# cities

&e$eral Mergers C 'c.uisitions followed to set the stage for Housing com Housingac.uired Indian eal Gstate Forum4IGF5 an online real estate forum to help the consumers

e)plore the choices and the other strategic MC' was of eality Business Intelligence to

strengthen its analytics branch

Callenge

In an essence, Housing has set the stage to host its consumers online platform for booking

their dream homes But the challenge lies ahead, in building a credibility to bring about a

change in consumer beha$iour to shift from offline to online Housingcom has to become the

most preferred option of acti$e home buyers to sur$i$e in challenging real estate sector (otonly the customer ac.uisition is critical to emerge as a market leader but also it has to sustain

long term $iability &hort term discounts on the base prices and additional gifts on booking

$ia online portals is a common practice But it won?t be effecti$e in the long run as the

customer needs and preferences eclipse the short term gains The key areas for the

Housingcom would be to focus on building credibility in the long run and connect to the

right target audience

C"#T$M%& '!F% CYC'%


4/4

evolve - story of housing.com

Documents