By Andrew Batt:
More than 350 real estate industry professionals learned how DDProperty.com, Thailand’s number one property website, is changing the way people buy, sell and rent property in Thailand at a lavish event in Bangkok yesterday.
In April 2012, DDProperty.com launched the first mobile application for real estate agents in Thailand to help them manage their property advertising, messages and enquiries “on the go”, and in real time via their iPhones.
This was followed in June by a new mobile application which helps home buyers easily find properties whilst on the move, showing property photos, videos, prices and maps. The service also includes an innovative “show me properties nearby” application that uses the iPhone’s internal GPS system to help locate properties for sale and for rent within the nearby vicinity, and shows them on a map.
Already 16 percent of users are accessing DDProperty.com via a mobile phone or tablet device. In addition, the number of visitors who access DDproperty via mobile phones has increased by 163 percent over the previous 12 months .
The DDProperty.com website has recently undergone a makeover and now boasts many exciting and innovative features over the previous few months. Today it has launched an English version this week to cater to Thailand’s growing expat residents, as well as English-speaking buyers overseas (more than 10 percent of DDProperty users are based overseas). This includes information, property listings and daily news specifically targeted to non-Thai customers, whether in Thailand or around the world. The new English version is also expected to see increased demand for properties in popular resort areas such as Phuket, Pattaya, Koh Samui, Krabi and Hua Hin.
DDProperty.com is part of the PropertyGuru Group, and the company recently announced a THB1.5 billion investment from ImmobiientScout24, Europe’s number one property portal and part of Deutsche Telecom. One of the benefits of this partnership will see both market-leading companies share ideas and expertise – benefitting the real estate sectors in each region.
DDProperty.com is already the established market leader in Thailand (source: Alexa.com, Google AdPlanner and TrueHits). It is number one in terms of traffic, and also in terms of listings with more than 140,000 properties being advertised currently. The website adopts the same successful model used by its sister websites in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Compared with the same time last year, the internet traffic to DDProperty.com has almost tripled to 1.3 million monthly users – up from 450,000. This growth has been driven by the rapid increase in Internet users, Smartphones, Internet-enabled tablet devices and a growing property market.
PropertyGuru has devoted 2012 to building and strengthening the DDproperty brand and has embarked on a major THB20 million marketing campaign online and offline, with the aim of reaching professionals and parents in the 25 to 40-year-old age group. Current campaigns include high visibility advertising on the BTS and MRT mass transit networks, through billboards, print and online banner advertising. The company will also be holding several property exhibitions in Bangkok, as well as the first Thailand Property Showcase in Singapore next month.
Steve Melhuish, CEO and Co-Founder of the PropertyGuru group, said: “We are delighted with the incredible growth and becoming the number one property website in Thailand. We’re very excited about the market and plan to continue to invest aggressively in the DDProperty brand and innovative new services to help Thailand’s homebuyers, real estate agents, developers and sellers. By 2015, we expect more than 15 percent of the company’s total revenue to come from Thailand. Our plan is to build the DDproperty brand into the most recognised brand in its sector so that when people think of Property, they think of DDProperty”.
He added: “We have launched Mobile Property Applications, and we have rejuvenated our website to bring it into line with the PropertyGuru brand image. The site’s search system has also been simplified, making it easier for customers to search for and locate properties. We have also added English language to the website. This isn’t merely a translation of Thai content into English; we have information, property listings and daily news that is specifically targeted to non-Thai customers, whether in Thailand or around the world.
“In Thailand, numbers of online and mobile users are growing very fast. This can be seen from Google statistics where the growth rate of people searching for homes online is up by between 300 – 500 percent since 2009. This number is growing faster than that of other countries in the region,” added Melhuish.
Research from Google, which highlights consumer behaviour in Thailand, shows the number of people in Thailand searching online for property increased 500 percent since 2009 – with Thailand leading Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for the number of property searches online (see below). This number is expected to increase over the coming years – driven by rapid adoption of the Internet and Smartphones in Thailand. A recent report by Nielsen showed that 24 percent of total media consumption in Thailand was now via the Internet/Mobile.
The property market in Thailand continued to be strong, despite the floods in late 2011. According to recent research by CBRE Thailand, eight projects were launched in Q1 2012 in the downtown area of Bangkok. The number of newly launched units increased from 2,679 in Q1 2012 compared to 1,153 in the previous quarter. In addition, the overall occupancy rate for the down town Bangkok area increased to 73.1 percent in Q12012.
Some of this was supported by a 1 percent increase in expats holding working permits from 100,641 in Q42011 to 101,385 in total. Japanese nationals made up 25 percent of the total. Although completions of developer-built single-detached houses in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region decreased drastically over the 12 months due to delays from the floods, completions of developer-built townhouses and shop houses increased 4.8 percent versus the same time last year.
For the latest property news from Thailand and around Southeast Asia in English, visit our Property News section. If you’re looking for Thailand property to buy, sell or rent you may like to visit www.ddproperty.com.