The Unusable Real-Estate Sites March 30, 2007
Posted by Pallav Sharda in : Real Estate , trackbackIf you were observing the Real-Estate related online market in India recently, get ready for the default feature of India and everything Indian- overcrowding.
I was naive enough to think that I’ll write about the online real-estate sites focusing on India. How many could there be? 5? 10??? I’m in shock, setting up online property related websites has caught on like common cold. Everybody (and their brother) has one:
- PropertiesBazaar
- IndiaPlot
- PremisesIndia
- PropertyGalaxy
- PropertyZones
- PropMart
- RealEstatemore
- RealAcres
… the list goes on and on. Besides the fact that they are focused on Indian real-estate market, one more aspect is common between all these sites- minimal attention to usability
. The content and widgets are all crammed into the homepage, and there is at least 1 graphic that is craving for your attention by blinking or scrolling or flashing. Geez. You would think that at least one web developer would have read some usability text (Refer to Jakob Nielsen’s excellent articles here and here).So I quit. I’ve decided to cover only the major players (Don’t ask me how I’ll figure out who is major). Hopefully, some of these minor players will die the natural death of premature startups (like Bindaazproperties apparently did. I had saved the link few weeks back, and by the time I got around to writing about them, the site was no more. RIP BindaazProperties.)
Disclaimer: I obviously know very little about the above sites and the stage of development they are in. Before someone takes offense to this post, try to read it from the perspective of an end-user on the web. 
If your site is not ready for prime time, keep it under wraps. Or put a “Beta” sign on it, at the very least.
Update: As one of the readers pointed out, BindaazProperties is functional now. So the example may be void, but the point still remains.
Comments»
>The Unusable Real-Estate Sites
I have very unusable real estate site, how to make it better?
Great post on poor real estate websites… which are not, by the way, limited to sites for Indian real estate. I review lots of USA sites that make the same mistakes.
Thanks for the comment Kathy. Feel free to point to more unusable Indian real-estate websites, if you stumble upon them. Maybe we can start an uber list of unusable real-estate sites
~eIndia Moderator
Realestatemore.com is a site for worldwide Real Estate Classifieds. The Real Estate Agents/Brokers/Buyers/Sellers etc can register free in the site providing all the details regarding the property. These profiles & details are well categorized and updated regularly. You can find any advertisement or details according to your requirements.
Hii,
I just read this post on Real Estate Sites and about Bindaazproperties.com. It was one of the first few to be started and by an MBA, Nitin Jain. I had a talk with him once and unfortunately he did not get the right funding or VC at the launch. However its the fore vision that we got to see of the person and I think he is working on a couple of other ideas which are under wraps… if some VC is listening, you gotta catch hold of this guy from Indian School of Business - Hyderabad.. I think Batch of 2005 and was also the President of the Entrepreneurship Club there.
And I just checked the portal http://www.bindaazproperties.com. Its up again.. they revamped it for a World Launch and was so offline. All the best to Indian Entrepreneurs and hope as many succeed
Meghna
Finally a website that hauls up crap on the internet. Personally I feel that real estate websites are major scammers. Magicbricks and 99acres have so many ghost listings. You call em and u get a broker on the line selling you something else!!….
In any case the trend is towards growth. I like indiaproperties.com its quite good in terms of listing quality.
Here an interesting article I read which points towards future trends…
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Online-property-deals-gain-ground/226685/
Amit,
Thanks for the comment and the article (it was interesting!). I’ll check out magicbricks and add it to the list. Do write back if you find more Indian real-estate sites worth talking about.
~eIndia Moderator
true! I was searching in 99acres and magicbricks, first 80% listings belongs to agents …which they say the property is not available, but then the agent says he will show similar property…that is disgusting….
nowadays makan.com and realacres.com is 2 interesting sites I prefer going… indiaproperty.com is not updated it seems.