Despite its population, most Southern Asian property portals are still, mostly, not profitable. The lack of market development, the localised nature of property search and a reliance on the primary market have meant that property portal businesses have traditionally been playing the long game of achieving scale and waiting for profitability.
Nevertheless, there are some big players in the market. Online Marketplaces did the hard work—here are the biggest property portals in South Asia, and what they're up to.
Market Leader - Zameen.com: One of the most dominant forces in South Asia, Pakistan's Zameen is jointly owned by EMPG (recently renamed to Dubizzle Group) and Frontier Digital Ventures and it has a big lead over its rivals in Pakistan, with a sizeable traffic advantage over its rivals according to Similarweb.
Market Leader - Housing.com
A new market leader in terms of traffic in 2022, Housing.com overtook Magic Bricks as India's number-one portal and has remained on top. It's a tough fight for top spot, with MagicBricks and 99acres also in the running.
Meanwhile, Squareyards made a big jump in web visits this year, securing itself as India's "fourth" portal.
Market Leader - Basobaas.com
Founded by local entrepreneur Binit Sharma in 2014 the market leader in Nepal counts on foreign investment and expertise from Australia-based Emerging Classifieds Group. Basobaas.com is the only Nepalese property vertical site to have enough traffic for Similarweb to register.
Market Leader - LankaPropertyWeb.com
In Sri Lanka, the market leader is another portal backed by a specialist portal investment firm, Frontier Digital Ventures. Since buying out the local Lamudi brand property vertical in 2019, LankaPropertyWeb hasn't looked back.
The site reportedly enjoyed a traffic resurgence in February 2021 after suffering through the worst of the pandemic and today has some 260,000 monthly visits according to Similarweb.
Market Leader - bproperty.com
bproperty was recently sold by former owner EMPG to Digital Classifieds Group. The portal is headed up by Mark Nosworthy and counts as an investor Gilles Blanchard, Co-Founder of French portal SeLoger.com.
According to Similarweb property has around 270,000 monthly visits. Its main rivals in the market are horizontal marketplace players such as OLX and Bikroy who do not specialise in property.
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