Singapore Property Market Sees Startups Boosting Efforts Jul

With the reported increase in Singaporean private property prices in the second quarter, the property market seems primed to hold true to its promise of constant growth, albeit at a slower pace. What this translates into, for home financing service companies such as Smartloans.sg and PropertyGuru, is an increase in the demand for home financing options and other value added services, services that fall within the repertoire of these companies’ offerings.This promising growth in the private property market has encouraged PropertyGuru to bring in more talent to capitalize on the opportunities.

Their latest addition to their team is media industry veteran Raymond Teoh who will take over as General Manager, a position that oversees all of the company’s sales activities and revenue. Prior to joining PropertyGuru, Raymond was the Vice President of Advertising Sales for Pudding Media, an Israeli mobile advertising startup which had operations in the South-East Asian region. Pudding Media has recently folded, with CEO Ariel Maislos claiming that being ahead of time was the reason for their failure. Raymond has also headed the Interactive Business Unit for Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (SPH). Throughout his tenure at SPH, Raymond helped launched various marketing campaigns such as the SPH Targeted Video Commercial in 2008 and expanded the company’s location-based advertising SMS service in 2009. With over 10 year of experience in the online, print and TV advertising industry, Raymond brings with him a plethora of possibilities for PropertyGuru.On another note, the sister site of PropertyGuru, LoanGuru.com.sg has hit an astounding 4,000 users within just six months of its inception. Although no actual revenue numbers were provided, this Smartloans copy, created to fill the gap by parent company AllProperty Media when a deal with Smartloans could not be reached, has managed to grasp a secure foothold in the home mortgage market. With Smartloans also performing well in the same market, it looks like the growing property market is singing the same tune for both companies.

With the reported increase in Singaporean private property prices in the second quarter, the property market seems primed to hold true to its promise of constant growth, albeit at a slower pace. What this translates into, for property financing service companies such as Smartloans.sg and PropertyGuru, is an increase in the demand for home financing options and other value added services, services that fall within the repertoire of these companies’ offerings.

This promising growth in the private property market has encouraged PropertyGuru to bring in more talent to capitalize on the opportunities. Their latest addition to their team is media industry veteran Raymond Teoh who will take over as General Manager, a position that oversees all of the company’s sales activities and revenue. Prior to joining PropertyGuru, Raymond was the Vice President of Advertising Sales for Pudding Media, an Israeli mobile advertising startup which had operations in the South-East Asian region which has recently folded. Raymond has also headed the Interactive Business Unit for Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. (SPH) helping to launch various marketing campaigns such as the SPH Targeted Video Commercial in 2008 and expanded the company’s location-based advertising SMS service in 2009. With over 1.5 million users (Sources: Hitwise, Google Insights and Alexa.com) bringing in 100,000 sales lead monthly, the 4-year-old property and home site has its work cut out for it.
On another note, the sister site of PropertyGuru, LoanGuru.com.sg has hit an astounding 4,000 users within just six months of its inception. Although no actual revenue numbers were provided, this Smartloans copy, created to fill the gap by parent company AllProperty Media when a deal with Smartloans could not be reached, has managed to grasp a secure foothold in the home mortgage market.
With Smartloans also performing well in the same market, it looks like the growing property market is singing the same tune for both companies. With the competition heating up between these two players in the private property mortgage company, it would be interesting to see how a startup faces down a Goliath-backed LoanGuru. Comparing the online services of the two companies, it would only be fair to say that they are at par with each other.

However, LoanGuru has the advantage of PropertyGuru complementing their services, including the launch of their Facebook property search service. Being able to search property and financing options from a single service provider could prove to be more attractive to users looking to cut back on the hassle of property management while saving on cost. This could explain the expansion of Smartloans.sg into Malaysia with Smartloans.my, taking some heat off the competition by spreading into a similar but less fiercely competed territory.