Ten Questions with Ahmed Alaa and Pino D’Alterio, Co-Founders of Liza

There is a new generation of end-to-end real estate marketplaces springing up all around the world. Many of them are seeing success in markets where trust, transparency and outdated bureaucracy are big issues.

Liza is one of this new generation who hope to use technology to change the way property is bought and sold in their market. We spoke to the Egyptian proptech startup's founders to find out more about their mission and their market...

What is the problem that Liza solves?

Liza is a consumer-driven real estate platform, with a vision to empower its consumers.

Ahmed Alaa, Co-founder of Liza

The Egyptian real estate market is still a young market in terms of regulations and relationships between brokers, buyers and sellers.

Liza is aiming to shake up the Egyptian real estate market. not only does it allow the user to navigate through different types of properties with the highest accuracy and most professional display, but we're also trying to revolutionize the real estate market by minimizing the involvement of middlemen and by giving tools and a marketplace for buyers and sellers to interact directly without thinking of the commission burden.

What is Liza’s USP?

The use and implementation of technology in linking buyers to sellers directly without middlemen. We connect real estate Developers’ sales teams with their prospective buyers directly on a subscription basis - not on a commission basis!

We also have a keen focus on our customers’ data privacy by minimizing the use of third parties and implementing the GDPR requirements. This is something that we believe we are the first to implement in the Egyptian real estate market.

What is Liza’s biggest challenge?

Getting our audience to understand the use of the brand as a tool rather than brokerage, especially with the lack of broker regulations and the increase of uncertified brokers.

What made you want to start a new real estate portal in a market with some established players?

Pino D’Alterio co-founder of Liza

We are totally different from the portal players. They are listing websites only and use third-party like WhatsApp and other communication tools. Their line of business is B2C and B2B (brokers and middlemen listings).

Liza is a platform and mobile application focused on customer satisfaction with its own internal communication channel (Liza messenger).

We are an independent platform that does not use third-party tools and whose main target is connecting the seller and the buyer directly through our platform. We really don’t see Liza as just another real estate platform.

How has Covid-19 changed the landscape for Liza?

Actually, some of the consequences in the market brought about by COVID-19 helped in the creation of Liza.

What is one thing our readers might not know about but would probably find interesting about the Egyptian property market?

There’s a lot of foreign investment opportunities in Egypt starting from the north coast (New Alamein City for example) passing by the New Administrative capital, all the way to New Galala city featuring an international marina right after the new Suez canal corridor to the Red Sea Riviera.

The Egyptian property market is booming in both the primary and secondary markets with plenty of opportunities for investment and a clear path for growth.

Which other portals and PropTech companies around the world do you like to read about and keep up with?

Zillow is one of the portals we like to keep an eye on as well as Immoscout and Immowelt in Germany.

What is Liza currently working on?

Liza is now focused on three paths: 

1. Discussing seed funding with prospective investors 
2. Continuously working on the development of the platform as the ideas and enhancements are still ongoing
3. Mobile application launch on 15th of January

What is the most common request from clients?

The mobile app launch and expanding our business into the non-Egyptian market are the most common requests we get from our clients. 

How do you see the market evolving and what will you be doing to be ahead of the curve?

The whole country is moving towards digital transformation. It’s true that we are not the first digital real estate platform but we are the first to implement the concept of directly linking sellers and buyers through our uniquely designed encrypted messenger.

Step by step the real estate sector is starting to move towards raising awareness and revolutionizing the way of buying and selling, 

Stakeholders in the real estate sector are becoming aware of the revolution happening in the way property is transacted. Ultimately, we provide a unique tool that homeowners, developers and agents will eventually be convinced by. 

In our development plan, there are features that will put us on top of the digital real estate platform competition in Egypt.