The Indian reality market has seen huge explosion in the last decade. In response, there are several players who have emerged in the eRealtor sector providing online assistance and brokerage that can help you buy, sell or rent homes of different shapes and proportions. Some of the notable ones are –

1. IndiaHomes
2. 99acres
3. Housing.com
4. CommonFloor
5. Makaan
6. Mabicbricks
7. IndiaProperty
8. PropTiger
9. HomeShikari

As a core function, all the eRealtors provide services such as map based listing, filtering features, mobile support, verified listing, site photographs, information about nearby locality etc. For a consumer, it is difficult to select any one of them based on features alone – since there is some uniformity about the hygiene features that everyone provides.

Which one are preferred by customers?

I did research on traffic share and technology used by the eRealtor companies and the analysis point to a certain usage and search pattern but I feel it is finally the overall experience of doing business and service that makes customer stick to some eRealtors compared to others. Secondly, marketing plays a very important role in driving traffic in a multi-player market that offer little perceived differentiation. Some of the players like 99acres and Magicbricks are big on marketing and receives top traffic in this sector.

Lastly, company that gets attention from consumer is the one that establishes leader status in a niche position. For example Housing.com with its map-based innovative search got much media attention that helped them get significant traction from new customers.

I will publish the research matrix in one of my next blogs.