PH’s top online property portal boasts 15M user visits

The country’s top online property portal Lamudi Philippines reported having 15 million user visits last year, growing its internet traffic close to five times since 2014 as more Filipinos engage in “property window shopping.”

Lamudi Philippines CEO Bhavna Suresh said during a press briefing on Thursday that the company hosted more than 100,000 active listings last year alone, accounting for over 1.1 billion square meters of properties either for sale or for lease.

Consumer data collected from their online portal showed that the Philippine property sector is still a buyer’s market with 61 percent of listed properties last year put for sale and only 39 percent for lease.

Moreover, consumers check at least eight listings on average, spending 10 minutes per visit.

Repeat visits

Sixty percent of these organically driven online searches were repeat visits, a figure which Lamudi said points to a high intent among property-seekers to purchase or lease in the next six to 12 months.

Lamudi did not disclose how much of these online views translated to actual transactions, noting that they prioritized monitoring online traffic over actual sales.

However, with the popularity of the online platform,  most, if not all of the country’s largest developers, have already used Lamudi to promote their properties to a wider audience.

Big developers

“We have all the big developers and more established ones with us. In the last couple of years, a lot of smaller and new developers were also showing [online],” she said.

In 2017, 59 percent of property hunters looked for houses, a relatively smaller figure compared to previous years, according to Suresh.

She said the numbers suggested that the market is starting to look at other properties, particularly condominiums and land/lots, which accounted for 14 percent and 12 percent of online searches last year, respectively. Apartments accounted for 11 percent.

Of the house and lot searches, 49 percent looked for properties priced at P5 million and below, 35 percent for homes priced up to P20 million, and 13 percent for those priced up to P150 million.

Four percent of online searches looked at properties with over P150 million price tag, Lamudi said.

Supply and demand

Quezon City took up the bulk of the supply and demand, accounting for eight percent of online listings and 15 percent of total views. Makati City followed with 12 percent of online listings and 10 percent of online traffic.

Paranaque and Pasig each had eight percent of online listings, while Taguig, Manila, and Davao had seven percent each.

When asked how the online platform was received outside of Metro Manila, she said that Lamudi was “very confident” with the data they gathered in the National Capital Region, Cebu, and Davao.

“Outside that, we don’t have much,” she said, noting that there are emerging markets in Iloilo, Bacolod, General Santos City, and Cagayan de Oro.

Network

The portal has a network of 5,000 real estate brokers posting these properties, of which only Professional Regulation Commission-licensed practitioners are enrolled to ensure credibility and professionalism.

Lamudi is present in over 30 countries, with more than 900,000 property listings, according its website. In Southeast Asia, Lamudi is present in Indonesia, Suresh said, which saw a smaller online traffic when compared to the Philippines.