PropertyGuru Immediately Closes Rumah.com and FastKey Services

Startups proptech PropertyGuru shut down the service immediately marketplace in Indonesia, which has been operating through the Rumah.com platform on November 30, 2023. This decision has affected around 61 Rumah.com employees.

In addition, the company will also stop operating FastKey services in all markets, including Indonesia on 31 July 2024, and in Malaysia and Singapore on 15 October 2024.

Group CEO & Managing Director Hari V. Krishnan in open letter PropertyGuru employees said that this was a difficult decision. This strategic step was taken by thinking about the future of the company's business in the future.

"It is critical to continually review progress and periodically streamline our operations, while carefully realigning our resources where they are needed. Our efforts and focus should be on those businesses that are already in operation or have demonstrated the potential to achieve growth that can continue to increase while ensuring a strong economic unit value." he wrote.

The company ensures that affected employees receive the appropriate support and assist them in transitioning to new opportunities. The company also promised to return fee who have been paid according to their respective contracts. Likewise for vendor partners, the company will continue to pay obligations according to commitments.

Founded in 2011, Rumah.com revolutionized the home buying process to become more transparent and accessible online. Rumah.com helps property seekers in Indonesia by providing a wide range of relevant options, in-depth information, and solutions that will make property seekers make the right decision.

At the end of 2015, PropertyGuru through Rumah.com announced the acquisition of Rumahdijual.com to strengthen its position as the leader in the property website market. However, on December 17 2021, the company announced a business efficiency measure by stopping RumahDiJual's operations.

PropertyGuru FastKey itself is a customized solution that offers a range of the latest technology products and services that enable automation from a property project launching to enter the process closing. Some of FastKey's excellent features include performance visualization, report customization, and integration with ERP systems seamless pattern.

In an official statement, the PropertyGuru Group also revealed that these two business decisions are not expected to have a significant impact on the financial prospects in 2023.

As is known, PropertyGuru has successfully done IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for US$254 million on March 18, 2022. This corporate action was realized after the company completed its merger with Bridgetown 2 Holdings, a special purpose acquisition company formed by Pacific Century Group and Thiel Capital LLC.

Happen proptech in Indonesia

In Indonesia itself, Rumah.com is not the only player proptech doing efficiency. Previously, startup proptech Lamudi Indonesia also announced business streamlining including reducing the number of employees in several divisions.

Nonetheless, the market proptech in Indonesia is still considered sexy in recent years. This is evident from the ongoing funding for startups in this sector. One of them is a platform that facilitates credit for housing, concise, which recently announced initial funding of more than IDR 52,4 billion.

In addition, this sector is also still giving birth to new players such as Briix which offers an efficient process for making property investments. Apart from Briix, there is also a property investment marketplace platform GORO which recently secured over IDR 15,2 billion in pre-seed funding led by Iterative.

Several players in this sector also continue to grow new innovations such as Pinhome which recently launched a tiered mortgage application feature. With this feature, prospective property buyers will get the latest interest rate information on tiered mortgage programs at various banks that offer the program.

Regarding the property market in Indonesia, data from the Rumah.com Property Market Index shows positive sentiment in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the previous quarter, both from the sellers and consumers side. This is also seen in the price and demand indices.

In this report, the price index shows a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase of 1,7% in the first quarter of 2023. This increase is higher than the increase in the previous quarter. Price increases in this quarter were also seen on an annual basis (year-on-year/YoY) of 7,1%. This annual increase was also higher than the previous quarter's growth.