REA Group Agrees to Housing.com Divestment to Aurum Proptech

REA Group has entered into a binding share sale agreement to sell the Housing.com business to Aurum PropTech.

On completion of the transaction, REA India, part of REA Group, will hold a 24.9% stake in Aurum Proptech, increasing its stake after Aurum agreed to acquire PropTiger from REA India in 2025. According to a press release to the ASX:

The transaction is expected to result in an overall loss on divestment of approximately A$110m, reflecting an impairment of goodwill and transaction related costs.

In FY26 the India business is expected to contribute approximately A$62m to REA Group revenue and to reduce EBITDA by approximately A$36m (A$37m excluding foreign currency impact). The India business will be classified as a discontinued operation in the FY26 Group results and associated assets and liabilities will be held for sale.

The transaction is subject to customary conditions, including Aurum shareholder approval, and is expected to complete by the end of Q1 FY27. Aurum is a leading Indian-listed proptech company with a portfolio of businesses servicing the entire real estate journey. It is strongly positioned to take the India business forward, bringing deep capabilities and experience in adjacent Indian marketplaces and the ability to leverage the established platform and customer relationships built by the REA India team.

Cameron McIntyre, CEO at REA Group, said:

"Aurum has strong capability and local market knowledge to operate the India business effectively. We are confident it will be in the right hands and is well placed to build on the strong foundations the team has established. To the REA India team, thank you for the significant contribution you have made. We are committed to supporting everyone through this process and look forward to future growth and partnership under Aurum's leadership.”

Aurum Ventures Founder and CEO Ashish Deora said:

"We welcome REA as a significant shareholder in Aurum as we build the next chapter of India’s proptech ecosystem, powered by AI and data. Housing.com is India’s leading real estate marketplace, and Aurum is the largest tech enabled transactions platform. Bringing marketplace and transactions together on one platform will create compounding synergies that will drive the next phase of value creation."

A Brief History of REA India

REA Group invested in Housing.com in 2017 with the intention of taking market leadership in India. Nine years and circa USD $120m (of disclosed investment) later, the REA India experiment feels like a bet that never quite took off. It won the thing it kept claiming to win—audience leadership—but the problem was that it never converted eyeballs into meaningful revenue gains.

Along the way, Makaan was wound down, while Housing.com founder and CEO Dhruv Agarwala made way for Praveen Sharma.

In July 2025, REA India agreed to divest PropTiger to Aurum PropTech in exchange for a 5.5% equity interest in Aurum, divesting the moneymaking asset in the REA India portfolio and retaining the loss-making traditional portal.

Last October, Housing Edge—a rental service provider for landlords and tenants—was discontinued following regulatory changes that undermined its commercial viability.

The H1 FY2026 numbers show that PropTiger and Housing Edge contributed around 60% of REA India's revenue. FY26 guidance suggested that REA India would incur an EBITDA loss of A$40–45m.

Less than a decade on from its initial investment, REA India has undergone a transformative reset, and REA Group will retain a smaller interest in the new-look business as Aurum Proptech continues its foray into the hyper-competitive Indian market.