PropertyGuru joins forces with Australia's REA Group to increase international reach

Singapore's number one property site links with REA Group’s market-leading Australian real estate site and bi-lingual Hong Kong site to help property buyers in the Asia Pacific

To capitalize on the Asia Pacific’s re-energized property market, an international partnership  has been inked between Singapore's leading property site www.PropertyGuru.com.sg and Australia's REA Group, which owns and operates a number of property sites around the world including Australia's number one real estate site realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk, which is dedicated to the Hong Kong property market.  

Under the agreement, a “Singapore” option will be added to the “International Sites” menu tab on the realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk websites which will drive users directly to www.PropertyGuru.com.sg's home page. In addition, PropertyGuru will add an “International Sites” tab to its website which will include Australia and Hong Kong, linking directly to the realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk websites respectively.

This deal will help property buyers located in Australia and Hong Kong find Singapore property and vice versa, and is also anticipated to lead to increased traffic and improved search engine visibility and website ranking for the three sites.

The strong demand for homes in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia by overseas buyers was highlighted as a key driver for this collaboration. Incidentally, there are a large number of locals and Singaporean expatriates in Hong Kong and Australia logging on to PropertyGuru, making these countries the 3rd and 4th largest sources of overseas traffic for PropertyGuru respectively.

“We are delighted to be partnering with REA Group on this international network initiative, which will not only help PropertyGuru's buyers find foreign properties but also will increase traffic between our three sites,” stated Steve Melhuish, CEO of PropertyGuru.com.sg.

Commenting on the agreement, Georg Chmiel, REA Group CFO and General Manager International, said: “REA Group is very pleased to partner with PropertyGuru and introduce our Australian and Hong Kong sites to property seekers in Singapore.  With the link to PropertyGuru.com.sg, REA now offers visitors to our sites direct access to leading property destinations in seven countries.”

According to Hitwise, the leading global information services company, Australian property websites
are the most popular international property sites visited from Singapore, with approximately 4 percent of all online property visits from Singapore. As for Hong Kong, it registers about 0.4 percent of all property visits from Singapore.

PropertyGuru is used by over 1.6 million consumers per month and is the leading property website in Singapore according to Hitwise, Alexa.com and Google Insights. REA Group’s portfolio of websites attracted 9.4 million unique browsers during May 2010, according to sources Nielsen Market intelligence, Nielsen SiteCensus and Omniture.

This announcement comes on the back of a busy few months for PropertyGuru with recent launches of its iPhone application in May, Facebook listing application for agents in June and property data analysis tool earlier this month.

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Media Contacts:

Ms Winnie Khoo
PropertyGuru International (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.
Contact number: + 65 6238 5971
Email: winnie@propertyguru.com.sg

Ms Jennifer Parker
Sage Communications
Contact number: + 61 (0403 296 864)
Email: jennifer@sagecomms.com.au
 

About PropertyGuru:
www.PropertyGuru.com.sg is Singapore’s leading property and home site and the brainchild of PropertyGuru International (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., a local firm established in 2006. The site won the CNBC “Worlds Best Property Award” as well as the CNBC Asia Pacific Property Awards for “Best Property Portal Asia Pacific” in 2009 and “Best Property Portal Singapore” in 2008 and 2009. According to Experian Hitwise Singapore (Experian.com.sg), PropertyGuru is the leading property portal in Singapore.

www.PropertyGuru.com.sg provides real time access to multi-media rich content covering property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and largest online property database in Singapore. It works closely with prominent real estate developers in Singapore and overseas, over 17,000 housing agents, and home-related firms.

The site is used by over 1.6 million consumers who view 25 million pages and generate over 150,000 leads for advertisers every month (sources: Hitwise, Google Insights and Alexa.com). PropertyGuru's user base has consistently grown by 15% per month since its launch. These users are ‘mass affluent’  

and comprise 53% earning over $100k, 13% over $250k pa; 35% expatriates; 85% live in Singapore, 15% overseas (foreigners and Singapore expats); 32% own 2 or more properties (source: survey conducted by Aktiv Digital with 800 respondents).

About REA Group:
REA Group (ASX:REA) is a market-leading online advertising business specialising in real estate. Established in Melbourne in 1995, the Group operates real estate websites in Australia and around the world. Together, its sites received more than 9 million unique browsers in May 2010 (source: Nielsen Market intelligence, Nielsen SiteCensus, Omniture).

About RealEstate.com.au:
realestate.com.au is Australia’s leading online property portal which attracted around 6 million unique browsers during the month of June 2010. Earlier this year, realestate.com.au launched its new-look website featuring search functions such as compare it, gallery view and map view.

About Squarefoot.com.hk:
Squarefoot.com.hk is one of Hong Kong’s leading residential property websites with approximately 70,000 listings (Squarefoot internal data, June 2010). Together with the Square Foot magazine (English listings), the Property Post magazine (Chinese-language listings), and the Inside Discovery Bay lifestyle magazine, squarefoot.com.hk is a leading source of Hong Kong property information and market trends. Property listings cover luxury properties for rent and sale, residential properties for rent and sale, as well as serviced apartments for rent.