OLX Strengthens Presence In India’s Real Estate, Doubles Its Business Seller Base In 2018

OLX, India’s largest online classifieds marketplace for Auto, Real Estate and Goods and Services with 40 million monthly active users, has strengthened its position in the real estate category with strong business growth witnessed in 2018. It has witnessed tenfold increase in average ticket size of projects listed on the platform from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 2 crore and reveals its business plans to expand to 25 cities in India backed by doubling the headcount of the sales team in 2019. Riding on the back of this growth, OLX has also doubled its revenue from business listers on the platform especially from premium developers who list high-value projects upwards of Rs 1cr+. Business listers on OLX have also doubled their spends in 2018 vs 2017, showcasing OLX as a preferred marketing channel for the real estate industry in India.
Commenting on the occasion, Sunny Kataria, VP, Real Estate Category, OLX India said, “After having built a deep understanding of the market, we are focused on transforming the way consumers and sellers, buy and sell real estate online. 2018 was a significant year for OLX Real Estate in which we doubled performance especially in terms of our revenue and significantly scaled the number of users across the category. As we look to strengthen our real estate vertical, we will scale our presence across residential and commercial properties being listed on OLX in 2019 by leveraging on our strengths to address the various challenges plaguing the Indian real estate industry.”
Real Estate is among the fastest growing categories on OLX. One in every five users on the platform visits the Real Estate section, highlighting the increasing interest of consumers in buying, selling and renting properties online. There are over 1.2 Billion page views every month on the Real Estate category on OLX. On any given day, there are over 350,000+ live listings on the Real Estate section with a wide presence across multiple real estate categories including residential and commercial properties. Amidst the residential property listings, the key ones are listings are in the price bracket of (40 lacs to 1 crore) and listings of premium properties of above 1 crore. In the commercial property, listings across office spaces, shops, plots of land, farmhouses and builder floors are posted daily by premium developers.
In 2018, the platform witnessed major traction across the key real estate hubs of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. In order to assist the sellers, the new sales team will be responsible for expanding the monetization channels by onboarding builders, professional sellers, tenants and engaging with the local real estate communities with a strong focus on premium developers. The team will also assist the sellers in understanding the challenges faced by them and train them on the tools available on OLX to increase visibility with buyers.
A user on OLX spends on an average 10 minutes every visit, that is twice as compared to any vertical player in Real Estate (Source: Similarweb). Every time a property is listed on OLX, it receives an average of 12 inquiries from prospective buyers. In 2018, OLX registered 65 per cent jump in registered property seekers on the platform, from 30 lakhs in December 2017 to 50 lakhs in March 2018.  There are over 30,000 property consultants on the platforms, across 100+ cities.
As per the industry and government estimates, India’s real estate sector accounts for 10% of the GDP and is expected to reach $1 trillion in market size by 2030 while expected to generate over 15 million jobs in the next 5 years. With the internet actively becoming the key touchpoint for users in their search for housing, OLX is going to aggressively grow its real estate offerings infrastructure on the platform and manpower for bringing maximum options to the buyers to choose from while hunting for their home.