As part of our #Outlook16 series, we spoke to online property listings companies – CommonFloor, 99Acres, IndiaProperty and MagicBricks about the key takeaways in 2015 and what 2016 holds for the sector. Answers have been edited for brevity. What were the top developments in the online real estate segment in 2015? How has the sector changed from 2014 to 2015? Vikas Malpani, CommonFloor Consumer expectations from online real estate sector has increased way more in terms of quality, experience and better servicing than ever before. They have started realizing that with attractive deals and packages, they also need improved service and overall experience. Narasimha Jayakumar, 99Acres The real estate sector moved to the online space almost a decade ago. However, it’s only last 12-18 months that this space has evolved into a major channel for buying/ selling/ renting real estate. Many developers took the online route through innovative models of pricing and even buyers followed the trend. 2015 also saw homes not only getting shortlisted but getting sold on property portals in greater numbers than ever before. Ganesh Vasudevan, IndiaProperty One of the major transformations in 2015 was a significant increase in usage of mobile for property search. The mobile web experiences have become as important as those with App, perhaps even more so to the user. Overall market dynamics strongly indicate a hybrid online-offline solution stack to cater to the end to end purchase cycle. Sudhir Pai, MagicBricks - The competitive landscape of the industry changed significantly over 2015. We saw intense competition towards the…
