Square Yards Brings 'Industry First' Transaction Data to its Listings

Indian portal company Square Yards has announced a new set of data on its listings that will help users understand the value they are potentially getting for their money before they enter into negotiations.

The new information is housed on listings pages under a new 'data-intelligence' tab and is available for the 'top ten' cities in India. Users can see data around registered sales, leases and mortgages associated with the building or neighbourhood in question and can unlock further fields around the price per square foot and a Square Yards-generated figure representing 'value' by registering as a user.

Tanuj Shori, Founder & CEO of Square Yards said, “We have brought the Gold Standard of transparency in Indian Real Estate. For decades, real estate consumers in India have suffered from lack of standardized pricing mechanism and had to argue and negotiate about prices in the dark, based on what market movers told them. By making these records public, we aim to remove the information asymmetry and build the most comprehensive 'Housing Dictionary' for the Indian real estate ecosystem.”

The company claims that these new data fields represent an industry first for Indian real estate portals. While Square Yards' competitors such as MagicBricks and REA Group-owned Housing.com do include information around the average price in an area or building, these appear to be calculated from listings prices rather than sales prices from official data sources.

Square Yards operates its main Indian real estate portal as well as portals targeting Indian ex-pats in The UAE, Middle East, Australia and Canada. The company has also made several acquisitions over the last few years that have allowed it to diversify its offerings into property management, data intelligence and VR services. Last month there were unsubstantiated rumours in the local media that Square Yards was looking to go public via an IPO.