The Ukrainian real estate portal Rieltor.ua has merged with its competitor Lun.ua to help residents of the war-torn country find housing in their hour of need.
A message posted on Lun's social media channels said:
"Since the beginning of the war, 10+ million people have fled their homes and must again solve the problem of finding housing. Of these, 6+ million are in Ukraine. Finding an apartment for rent every day is increasingly difficult, in many cities it is almost impossible.
The shortage of apartments on the market requires us to pay attention to the process of publishing ads, although previously we focused exclusively on search services. Time requires completely different approaches to the placement of an apartment, a different speed and ease of publication. Another level of platform relationships with realtors, many of whom day and night helped people find housing in the last month.
Therefore, we decided to join forces with a powerful real estate portal Rieltor, a leader in many regions of Ukraine, on the basis of which we will do the best service for renting and selling housing. Now we are strengthening the rieltor portal development team, helping to implement the coolest TECHNOLOGIES of LUN, we will support our brand."
According to a post on Lun.ua's Linkedin profile, listings on the portals have been free of charge since the 25th of March and the company is providing a list of realtors who are still working in the country.
On Monday, Lun.ua, Rieltor.ua and their competitor Dom.ria all displayed prominent defiant messages as the country's real estate industry remains all but paralysed in the face of the Russian invasion.
Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine's online classifieds industry has been heavily affected. The operator of market-leading horizontal platform OLX-Ukraine, Prosus reiterated its support for its Ukrainian business and, eventually, divested from its Russian classifieds assets.