Lifull Connect Acquires South American Portal Properati From OLX Group

Lifull Connect, the overseas division of Japanese portal company Lifull, has announced that it has agreed to acquire the OLX Group-owned Latin American real estate portal Properati for an undisclosed sum.

Founded in Argentina in 2012 by Gabriel Gruber and Martín Sarsale, Properati has a presence in Uruguay, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador and has become one of the most recognised portal brands in the region.

Apart from operating leading classifieds aggregator titles, Mitula, Nestoria, Trovit and Nuroa, Lifull Connect also owns and operates portal titles around the world including South Africa (Persquare), South East Asia (dotproperty) and in its native Spanish market (Globaliza).

Lifull Connect has also long held a presence in the Latin American portal scene with challenger portals PuntoPropiedad (Colombia), LaEncontré (Peru), Imocasa (Brazil) and iCasas (Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Chile). According to a press release, Lifull Connect's portal assets in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador will be subsumed under the Properati brand which itself will be transitioned to Lifull Connect management over the next three months.

“The real estate industry in Latin America is at a crucial stage as a massive digital transformation is ongoing. We are connecting millions of people digitally every month and aim to serve thousands of real estate companies. The acquisition of Properati strengthens our portfolio of digital products and services, which are focused on helping people make decisions that positively change their lives,” LIFULL Connect CEO Mauricio Silber commented

“As part of the LIFULL Connect family, we take a big step towards our mission of providing personalized service and a truly aggregate value for our users. How we do this will be empowered by the technology, innovations, and support LIFULL Connect has developed. This is guaranteed to help our property enterprises connect with significantly more customers each month,” Andrés Vega, CEO of Properati, explained.

The newly consolidated assets of Properati and Lifull Connect claim to have some 30 million visits per month with the group now becoming the main challenger to the Brazilian behemoth QuintoAndar which itself bought out the real estate portal assets of Navent only a few weeks ago.

OLX Group's sale of Properati to Lifull Connect represents the second divestment the group has made from real estate verticals over the last few years. The company recently sold its share of Central American market leader Encuentra24 to Frontier Digital Ventures and before that in 2020 OLX relinquished direct control of its assets in the Middle East with a merger with EMPG. OLX Group retains real estate verticals in Poland (Otodom), Portugal (Iovirtual), Russia (Domofond), Romaina (Storia) and Southern Africa (Property24).