Looking at the Potential of a Property Portal So It's Not Just an Ordinary Marketplace

Almost all industrial verticals are now starting to be disrupted by technology, including property. This business is generally controlled by veteran players, so all the methods are still done traditionally, including in the process of selling and renting units.

The presence of technology-based startups is the answer to a more efficient overall process. As a result, various solutions are offered with the basic umbrella as a portal marketplace. The point is how to make it easier for people who want to sell, rent, can be met with target consumers.

In Indonesia, various foreign property portals have sprung up. There is 99. co (Acquisition of Urbanindo), home.com (part of PropertyGuru Group), Lamudi, Rumah123 (part of REA Group), and OLX. There are also local players, such as Rumahku.com and BTN Properti.

The business model is more or less uniform, bridging the meeting between sellers and potential buyers. The form is mostly classified ads with a subscription model. The drawback is that the majority of these portals can only be posted by property agents.

Looking to Singapore, the developed country has a variety of property startup players with attractive business models. One of them ohmyhome. He offers a DIY platform approach to selling and buying homes. Everything can be done independently, without an agent.

Ohmyhome is not yet available in Indonesia. But it has started to penetrate into Malaysia and Thailand since the beginning of this year for business expansion.

To take a deeper look at how Ohmyhome offers solutions that disrupt the property industry, the 2019 Echelon Asia Summit invited Ohmyhome Co-Founder Race Wong to share more about his three-year-old company.

Offer a localized solution

Race explained, Ohmyhome was here to resolve the issue of the commission being too high for the agent. Plus, to own a house is a long and tiring process, it can take up to 10 stages. Starting from price negotiations, credit agreements, to meetings 1-on-1.

There, 90% of the people live in Housing and Development Board (HDB) housing. High density state-owned housing because it is in the form of apartments and the price is cheap.

Ohmyhome bypasses the agent path so the process can be much faster. However, the company still has agents specially recruited to help with any buyer complaints.

"We are not marketplace, does not sell any suggestions, does not provide classified ads, but rather focuses on solutions end to end. No matter how you want to buy property, if someone contacts you via Ohmyhome, you can immediately complete the transaction yourself and there is no charge," said Race.

He continued, if the buyer needs technical assistance in the field which has been handled by the agent, it can be assisted through the Ohmyhome team. The commission still depends on the services taken. For buying and selling transactions, starting from SGD2.888 for full service, SGD1.688 for meet-up and documentation. For rental, it starts from SGD988 for full service, $98 for service lite.

"This kind of model is quite new in Singapore. So we don't have direct competitors because the business model is different. We charge at a fixed price because we want everyone to have an equal opportunity in every service they need."

When it expanded to Malaysia, the business model based on HDB could not be applied at all by Ohmyhome. They apply a commission system with a percentage for their transactions because in the neighboring country, the issue is about trust, not price.

Hence, the company works closely with developers to find potential buyers. Because developers don't trust agents and buyers don't trust agents. In many cases of fraud, housing units purchased by buyers through agents are actually occupied by illegal immigrants and so on. The property agent is there the concept ., vulnerable to the risk of fraud.

Still have a real estate agent

Even though all Back-end Ohmyhome's system is already technology-based, but the company still needs a human touch by bringing in a property agent. They are specially recruited, not ., to serve the needs of buyers.

Agents have an important role to help people make big decisions and become an inseparable element. The reason is, buying a house is not a decision that is generally made once a year. Hence, the role of agents cannot be eliminated.

"But if you want to sell your house to someone you know, do you still need the role of an agent? Of course not. At the very least, the agent is only needed for the documentation process."

Race said the company had facilitated 2.00 housing units worth more than SGD1 billion. When compared, there are more than 1000 property agent companies in Singapore. The top 10 companies, have about 300 to 600 agents in each company.

But looking at the number of transactions, Ohmyhome is in fifth position, but only has 20 agents. In fact, to sell 2500 units it takes hundreds of agents if done traditionally.

"We believe we can be even more efficient by continuing to perfect the automation process in the system. Because so far the housing industry is still traditional and manual, it requires a face-to-face process to build relationships."

It is claimed that on average, the transaction process at Ohmyhome takes a month, some are the fastest, only a day. In the industry, the process of buying a house takes up to three months.

Seeing the business concept offered by Ohmyhome, it is certainly very interesting how the solutions offered are in accordance with what is happening in the country. Hopefully in Indonesia, property startup players can be more innovative in presenting solutions so that it is not just a marketplace portal.