Web of success

Increasing numbers of developers are looking to the Internet to advertise properties, Michael Layhani, CEO of propertyfinder.ae explains the benefits of doing business online.

Competition is fierce and targeting global online customers with individual requests is no easy task. Michael Layhani explains why the future of advertising property lies with the Internet.

Why did Propertyfinder set up in the UAE market?

REA Group is an Australian-based company. It is listed on the Australian stock market and 58% is owned by News Corporation, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch.

In 2004, REA Group ran Realestate.com.au in Australia, the number one online property portal. In 2003 and 2004 the directors started looking to acquire portals abroad and they bought Propertyfinder.com in the UK.

Sites in Italy, France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Hong Kong followed. As a company going global, Dubai was an interesting real estate market that they eyed with interest.

They started looking into the market, finding out who the players were, if there were any different real estate portals and what real estate media existed here.

They ended up on Al Bab World, the website that I was running back then. They decided it was the business model they wanted to pursue here, so they acquired 51% of the company.

We decided we would rebrand the whole thing under Propertyfinder.ae to benefit from the leverage we had in the UK with Propertyfinder.com.

Why did the company move here so late?

There was no specialised real estate media back then. They were going for online real estate portals and there was nobody in this market back then.

There was no existing target for them to enter this market.

Who is the site aimed at?

Everyone. Now we have a lot more properties on the website to buy, because this is what agents are keen to list with us. They get the biggest commission when they're able to sell rather than rent.

At the moment we've got commercial, residential, rentals, plots, and labour camps. I'd say the majority would be residential for sale on the website, and there are offices as well.

What is your role? Do you act as a vehicle for other real estate agents or do you have in-house agents?

Our clients are real estate developers or brokers and they list on our website. They buy a subscription to our website and then we generate leads for them. We're not a real estate broker.

We don't get involved in the transaction and we don't take any commission. We're advertising and revenue driven.

We just generate leads and throw them directly to the broker. Like a magazine or a newspaper does, it's the same thing online.

Where does the most interest come from?

The good thing with Internet is that you know where people are when they're looking at your website. Half of them are from the GCC, mainly from the UAE, then Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.