The Times of India group has recently launched a real estate portal called MagicBricks. With this, the online real estate space in India has actually got quite crowded. We already have quite a few real estate portals (99acres.com, PerSquareYard.com, IndiaProperty.com etc) and all of them look (more or less) the same to me.
Magic Bricks is a full-feature real estate portal. You can list or search for properties (residential or commercial), search for details about specific projects, builders or property brokers, get information about real estate trends/news, learn about home loans, Vaastu tips for home design et al.
I spent some time aimlessly browsing through the site. A few things caught my attention and in fact, left me pleasantly surprised. I am no admirer of TOI’s online ventures but, with MagicBricks, they have tried to push the envelope with a few (technology enabled) innovations, which I would like to bring to the notice of the readers of this blog. Here’s what I found interesting about MagicBricks–
Virtual Walkthrough Tour- This feature allows a property seller to upload a video of his property that prospective buyers can browse through. Its like a real life-like preview of the property. You can actually get a small architectural layout of your property made and link separate videos for individual rooms, interiors, exteriors etc. Its actually done very well and is worth checking out. However the starting price for this feature (at Rs 28000/-) seems insane to me. I don’t see people spending that kind of money to get their property’s video uploaded. A simpler solution that allows users to upload their own videos for a reasonable cost, would probably make more sense.
Locality Mapping Service– This is a free facility and using this, a user can browse through a basic online map of the locality where the property is located. On the map, the locations of civic landmarks like hospitals, shopping complexes, cinema halls etc are flagged off, in relation to the property’s location. Its simple and well thought out; unfortunately the mapping service they are using (mapmyindia.com), while being the best one around in India, still leaves a lot to be desired.
Live Help/Chat– There is live IM enabled help on the site and you can chat with customer care during Indian office hours. There’s no rocket science involved in this, but the fact remains, that this is the first public website in India (to the best of my knowlodge) that allows live (and free) chat with customer care. Pretty useful.
Microsite- This is a sort of a customized webpage for property agents or brokers, where they can put up a brief profile and list their property listings. This feature makes imminent sense, given the fact that a significant proportion of the user base for such web portals happen to be agents & brokers rather than individuals. I’m sure MagicBricks is not the first portal to do this but nevertheless, I thought this is worth pointing out.
Overall, the site’s design looks quite cluttered to me. Only time can tell whether TOI can leverage these innovative features to steal a march over others, in the online real estate space.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
One thing that bothers me is that the design seems to be very similar that of another major player in a different category of the classifieds space. I think real estate requires a much more specialized design – but most of the Indian companies don’t seem to give much attention to innovation in design and interface.
Definitely a comprehensive and complete site – will be monitoring this space closely myself, given how much revenue print real estate classifieds generates.
shaadi.com has had live chat service since quite some time ..
i meant live chat “customer service” not just live chat
Rajesh,
You’re right and I stand corrected on that. MagicBricks is not the first site with a live chat with customercare.
Himanshu,
Which site are you referring to? Do let us know.
Your point about lack of sensitivity of Indian portals to design issues is absolutely true.
amit
Hi Amit,
Those walkthrough are not videos but virtual tours. Virtual tours enable you to control your own navigation and view whichever angle and whichever corner of the room you want to.
Whereas in a video you are confined to whatever the they show to you, element of control is no longer with the viewer.
Bala,
Thats a good point. However if virtual tours are going to be priced at a minimum of 28K, then they are not worth it.
Hence, while having a virtual tour is great from a utilitarian point of view, its going to be a non-starter.
Which is where i suggested the ability to upload a simple videofor a reasonable cost; recording videos is so simple these days- you can do it from digicams, mobile phones etc.
amit
fdfgdfgdfgdfg
Very nice site from a Media Major.
I would like a much more simlistic approach to such classified services like craiglist.org. Any clues!!
Transparentkey is the best real estate portal in Tndia
Transparentkey is the best real estate portal in india
You must log in to post a comment.