PropertyGuru joins forces with Australia's REA Group

Singapore property site links with Australian real estate site to expand reach in Asia Pacific.

To capitalize on the Asia Pacific’s re-energized property market, an international partnership has been inked between Singapore's leading property site www.PropertyGuru.com.sg and Australia's REA Group, which owns and operates a number of property sites around the world including Australia's number one real estate site realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk, which is dedicated to the Hong Kong property market.

Under the agreement, a “Singapore” option will be added to the “International Sites” menu tab on the realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk websites which will drive users directly to www.PropertyGuru.com.sg's home page. In addition, PropertyGuru will add an “International Sites” tab to its website which will include Australia and Hong Kong, linking directly to the realestate.com.au and squarefoot.com.hk websites respectively.

This deal will help property buyers located in Australia and Hong Kong find Singapore property and vice versa, and is also anticipated to lead to increased traffic and improved search engine visibility and website ranking for the three sites.

The strong demand for homes in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia by overseas buyers was highlighted as a key driver for this collaboration. Incidentally, there are a large number of locals and Singaporean expatriates in Hong Kong and Australia logging on to PropertyGuru, making these countries the 3rd and 4th largest sources of overseas traffic for PropertyGuru respectively.

“We are delighted to be partnering with REA Group on this international network initiative, which will not only help PropertyGuru's buyers find foreign properties but also will increase traffic between our three sites,” stated Steve Melhuish, CEO of PropertyGuru.com.sg.

Commenting on the agreement, Georg Chmiel, REA Group CFO and General Manager International, said: “REA Group is very pleased to partner with PropertyGuru and introduce our Australian and Hong Kong sites to property seekers in Singapore. With the link to PropertyGuru.com.sg, REA now offers visitors to our sites direct access to leading property destinations in seven countries.”

According to Hitwise, the leading global information services company, Australian property websites are the most popular international property sites visited from Singapore, with approximately 4 percent of all online property visits from Singapore. As for Hong Kong, it registers about 0.4 percent of all property visits from Singapore.

PropertyGuru is used by over 1.6 million consumers per month and is the leading property website in Singapore according to Hitwise, Alexa.com and Google Insights. REA Group’s portfolio of websites attracted 9.4 million unique browsers during May 2010, according to sources Nielsen Market intelligence, Nielsen SiteCensus and Omniture.
This announcement comes on the back of a busy few months for PropertyGuru with recent launches of its iPhone application in May, Facebook listing application for agents in June and property data analysis tool earlier this month.