ONLINE PROPERTY TRADING ON THE RISE IN PAKISTANONLINE PROPERTY TRADING ON THE RISE IN PAKISTANONLINE PROPERTY TRADING ON THE RISE IN PAKISTAN

Online property trading is trumping traditional methods of finding properties, according to Pakistan’s best real estate website, Lamudi.pk (http://lamudi.pk/). This is due to the increased Internet penetration and usage of e-commerce in Pakistan.

Pakistan is currently ranked as the fastest emerging e-commerce market in the region. With around 30 million Internet users, 15 million smartphone users and around 12.8 million active, monthly Facebook users, Pakistan has around $400 billion of sales via the e-commerce platform and are expected to reach around $600 billion by 2017.

Saad Arshed, Country Director of Lamudi.pk, commented that: “The e-commerce wave is also revolutionizing the real estate industry of Pakistan. With users becoming more pressed for time, they want to be able to be on the way to work and look for a house, or sit comfortable in a cafe double checking available properties whilst they wait for friends.

Lamudi’s platform also witnessed a 78 percent increase in the total number of customer sessions since the beginning of 2016. In addition, we receive a huge chunk of real estate queries via our Facebook page demonstrating that the Pakistani population who are looking to buy, rent, or sell property want to interact with a brand through the easiest and quickest way possible - social media.”

Real estate agents and brokers are also well aware of the growing trend of an online presence. According to Mr. Imran Wasi, CEO of Investor’s World: “The online property trading model is very effective for us to reach out to our potential clients.

We have received a huge number of quality leads from overseas Pakistanis, from Lamudi’s platform and I believe it has greatly helped us in achieving our objectives in a timely manner. Going forward, maintaining an online presence, is a must have for the real estate community.”

Lastly, with the rollout of 3G and 4G technology, real estate apps are also widely used in Pakistan which are transforming house-hunting trends. Lamudi app was the first one to be developed for both Android and iOS users in 2014 and got tremendous number of downloads ever since.

With this technology boom underway, real estate websites and apps are expected to be the future of property trading in Pakistan, Arshed said.