Property Portal New Product Roundup: Houza, Idealista and Housing.com

Three portal companies have launched new products or tools on their platforms this week. Here's all you need to know about them...

1.  Houza

Market and Position - A challenger portal to the likes of Bayut/Dubizzle and PropertyFinder in The UAE.

New Tool - A new pricing widget on all results pages and listings pages that shows the average price evolution for the community, building and bedroom level as well as information about previous sale prices.

Context - Houza was launched in 2020, with the goal of disrupting the duopoly of Bayut / Dubizzle and PropertyFinder. Like many challenger portals, Houza will have to rely on innovation to gain market share. Currently, the competition does show pricing trends at the location level on listings pages but does not show recent transaction history and does not show pricing stats on results pages.

2. Idealista

Market and Position - The market leader in Spain

New Tool - A new calculator that takes tells the user how much it would cost to renovate their property and what the renovation would do to the sale or rental price. The tools takes an address and a rough indicator of how much work needs to be done from the user and gives out the information while also encouraging the user to fill in a lead form for a third party company specialising in renovations.

The tool isn't yet embedded on landing pages or even on the tools page, but you can be sure it will be soon.

Context - There is high demand for 'move-ready' homes in Spain, especially in urban areas like Madrid and Barcelona where renovated properties sell for an average of 25% more than non-renovated homes according to Idealista research.

The portal company is taking advantage of the renovation boom and is moving to become a key lead generator for another adjacent market. Others such as Adevinta-owned Fotocasa are likely to follow in some shape or form.

3. Housing.com

Market and Position - Neck and neck with both MagicBricks and 99acres in terms of traffic in India according to Similarweb

New Product - Named SolarRooftop, Housing's new product is essentially a lead generation product for third party residential solar panel company Loom Solar.

“At Housing.com, we continuously aim to create new offerings to add greater value to our customers. This tie up with Loom Solar is another step in that direction. Rooftop solar is one of the crucial elements in creating sustainable living solutions and we are confident that demand for this will continue to rise exponentially in the near future,” said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO

Context - Now that REA Group have seemingly gone all-in on their Indian assets, it seems like Housing.com along with stablemates Makaan and Proptiger are making a bid for all-out market leadership in the country. Tapping into a new adjacency which is backed by a government initiative and includes the word 'sustainable' can only be good for the bottom line and the PR effort.