Rumah123's Steps for Next Year and the Potential for Technology Business in the Property Sector that Haven't Been Many Eyes

Throughout 2016, we witnessed incredible growth and movement from a technology startup business in Indonesia. Funding, acquisitions, draft regulation, innovation, to the explosive growth of one of its sectors, namely fintech. However, in the midst of the frenzy, it seems that there is one sector that keeps its own 'beauty' and is still not getting much attention, namely the property sector. We had the opportunity to talk with Rumah123's Country General Manager Ignatius Untung regarding the property business potential and what steps Rumah123 will take for 2017.

The technology business in the property sector has not received attention in recent years, not without reason. The property sector itself is generally in a slowing phase. For example in the office sector.

According to the news Marketers, the absorption of office space in the Central Business District (CFD) area in the first semester only reached 29.000 m2, or decreased by 30 percent from the absorption throughout 2015. The same thing happened outside the CFD area which reached 84.000 m2, or only 65 percent of what was achieved last year.

Nevertheless, not a few are optimistic that next year will be a new cycle for the property business. The reason is simple, because infrastructure development in urban areas is increasingly widespread, government incentives and policies are increasingly pro-business, and also program success tax amnesty considered to be a driving force in accelerating recovery in this sector. Not much different opinion came from Untung.

“The potential for technology startups in the property sector in 2017 is very interesting because market properties that experienced a slowdown from 2014 have shown signs rebound at the end of 2016. The slowdown itself is an 8-year cycle that always occurs when market already overheated. After two years of slowing down, it's time to start accelerating again, more transactions, that is to say volume a bigger business,” said Untung.

Unfortunately, the property business is still considered as something serious so that even the beauty that is owned seems to be no longer sexy. Not as sexy as when it comes to food, fashion, devices, or even cars. Especially when you look at e-commerce businesses with the subject of fashion, gadgets, food, or transportation which are always supported by large promotional costs so that magnitudebrand exposure even bigger.

Untung explained, “In fact, property is one of the few businesses whose websites can be monetized, even [having] much smaller ad spend than other categories. Marketeven challenging, full of strategy. Not only online, but also offline because the property is still included high involvement product whose transaction process still has to involve offline engagement. "

“No wonder the e-commerce giant is great in the field of marketplace even though it turned out to be unable to lead in the property market when it entered the property portal business. In addition, one of the players classified horizontally even those whose promotion money can reach hundreds of billions per year are willing to enter this business which is in the category classified vertical. This proves that the property portal business is very sexy, challenging, and requires high business skills, not just a strong fight budget marketing," he continued.

Step Rumah123 in 2017

With the potential that is still wide open to be explored, it is only natural that the competition will be tougher in the future. Untung also said that next year the number of newcomers to the technology business in the property sector will increase, especially from outside Indonesia. Even so, Untung was more than happy to welcome them as partners to expand the market rather than as competitors.

Even if there is a threat, according to Untung, the smaller players will feel the impact first. It's a different story with Rumah123 which has already be a part of REA Group. Untung also confirmed that his party had an IPO and as a group already had positive cash flow.

"We have financial back up enough to face the competition. We [also] recruit the best talents in the industry. […] Technologically, we have done a lot of innovation much earlier than other players, not only as a property portal, but also e-commerce player overall. For example, VR/AR, big data, machine learning, muzzle, and others," said Untung.

Untung continued, "In Indonesia itself, in terms of revenue, we have 85% market share in category property developer and 90% market share in category not-property [including mortgage products]. We also apply an innovation mentality, including by organizing 4X hack day competition per year and tens training per year. As part of the world's largest media company, News Corp, we can also leverage technology and resource from sister companies we."

Rumah123 itself has been offering a mortgage mediation business for the past three years, which is run by itself and claimed by Untung market share-it reaches 90% in terms of revenue in the same category. In 2016, Untung claimed to have more than 520 thousand listing on its portal, the largest for paid portals. Meanwhile, the number of transactions recorded in website estimated at 700 trillion per year.

In addition, according to Untung, his party has succeeded incapture more than 1,5 million datasets from searches, listing, inquiry, to transactions. All of this data will be processed to improve personalization and relevance for more precise reach audience which is more precise.

Untung said, “From there we have market leadership crushing in terms of revenue, because we can push performance advertisers better than competitors. When other players are still busy fighting a lot traffic we've talked about relevance which means better performance."

“2017 is believed to be the year of property revival. From a business standpoint, we want to at least maintain our leadership in the market and this can only be done with product innovation that market fit, strategy marketing right on target, and sales mentality oriented to helpinginstead of selling. We make sure consumer concern and customer we are a priority with products and marketing placed as tools to achieve it, not the other way around that puts the product into center of everything," he said.