Leading real estate portal PropertyGuru, of which DDProperty.com is its market-leading Thailand website, has unveiled a new powerful research tool to help property seekers find their dream home with less hassle.
SmartSelect, which initially is only available in Singapore, is an industry first, is a personalised property research engine that allows home seekers to score properties against market benchmarks and their unique requirements.
To obtain a SmartSelect Score, users need to first set their unique property preferences such as size, psf price, location, tenure and age of the property. The engine then automatically compares the properties against URA or HDB data, and exclusive PropertyGuru listing data to generate a unique score.
Users can use this score to easily research and compare properties within the district, or even the same block or development.
PropertyGuru is confident that SmartSelect will set new standards for property search in Singapore and put it ahead of the competition.
“SmartSelect is the result of a two-year research and development initiative led by some of the smartest people in the industry,” said Lewis Ng, Managing Director of PropertyGuru Group.
He noted that the need to create SmartSelect came from seeing the frustrations faced by consumers during the property search and viewing stages.
According to PropertyGuru research, it takes Singaporeans an average of seven months from starting their property search to closing the transaction. This process typically involves a combination of browsing through properties both online or offline, in-depth research of vast amounts of URA or HDB data, careful budgeting and good judgement.
Recalling his house hunting experience, Goh Teck Beng said: “I started my journey with 20-30 listings gathered from online and print sources. A lot of time was spent gathering and understanding market insights across multiple property portals, putting them into excel sheets, before narrowing down to the final five properties. This was no easy feat as my search criteria kept changing; it was laborious and frustrating to say the least. Before making a final decision, the entire process took at least nine months.
“SmartSelect would have definitely made my life easier – I would have all the information I needed in one place. And with personalised SmartSelect scores for each of my shortlisted properties, I could rank and view them starting with the one with the highest score,” added the 42-year-old buyer.
To see how SmartSelect works, go to: www.PropertyGuru.com.sg/smartselect
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Singapore Editor of PropertyGuru Group, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
