Monetizing Home seekers on

Housing.com
September 30, 2022

Shashwath Satish Mahishi

Overview
● Housing.com is India’s leading Property Technology firm, connecting buyers and
tenants with homeowners, landlords, developers, and real estate brokers.
● Having Monetized the business from the side of home listers/brokers, Housing is
now looking into the possibility and benefits of monetizing the Home Seekers.
(Home seekers are customers looking to either rent/buy a property on the
Housing website)
● The assignment aims to talk about the advantages of monetization of Home
Seekers, product offerings, and finally the launch strategy. References used for the
data stated, are mentioned in the last slide.

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Understanding the problem
Why seeker monetization? Product-Market Fit? Should Housing go for it?

The general process followed by Historically, real estate brokers Yes, I believe that Housing must
home seekers is a long and have monetized both the buyer go for it. Housing can offer
arduous one, involving lots of and seller side, by collecting a several features for home-seekers
footwork in terms of searching heavy brokerage from both the that will entice them to pay for it.
for properties and areas which parties. Although the process is Another reason for home-seeker
meet their requirements, budget, easier with the introduction of monetization is that, in general
etc. Apart from all this, they also prop-tech firms, the market is there are more home-seekers
need to pay a heavy brokerage still the same. As Housing has than home sellers (data in next
fee in the end. As housing solves successfully monetized the seller slide), hence there is a greater
a lot of these problems, side, monetization of the buyer scope for generating revenue by
home-seekers will be willing to side should also work monetizing this side of the
pay for it. successfully. market.
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 The Target Audience can be divided into two main

Target audience
categories on the website (other than the
conventional categories they are divided into
already). Each of them also have different
requirements as shown below :

1. Investment Seekers - They are the ones who

are planning to buy a home/plot as an
investment. They look for plots with high land
appreciation and/or high ROI from rent
2. Residence Seekers - They are the customers
looking for a place to stay, either by renting a
home, buying a home, or buying a plot and
building a home. They look for localities with
good infrastructure, connectivity, amenities,
etc. The graph to the left shows how huge this
market is

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Offerings for Home-Seekers
Searching Features - The home-seeker can be provided with additional filters on
top of the ones currently available. These features can include
● Intention of buying - Here the customer can choose if they are planning
for an investment or a home to stay
● Category of the property/home - Using this feature the customer can
select the legal category the property/home falls into ( for ex - A khata,
B khata in case of Bangalore)

Valuation Feature - This will help the home seeker find the valuation of the
property they are planning to buy/rent, the following inputs can be used for valuing
the property/home
● Historical growth rate - The growth rate of land value in the previous
few years in the locality of the property can be taken into consideration
● Fundamental analysis - This is the most important input, that considers
the development of infrastructure, and connectivity in and around the
locality, among others
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Offerings for Home-Seekers ( Contd..)
Historical Data - The home-seeker can be provided with the following details to
help him/her make a more informed decision
● The data of the recent sale values of properties/homes in the vicinity, so
that they can make a better decision
● They can be connected with previous Housing customers who bought
or rented in the same locality. This is very crucial as customers always
do an in-depth analysis of the locality before buying/renting

Providing Personalised help - A consultant can be provided, who can help in the
following ways (a part of this can also be automated with an ai chat bot)
● Providing suggestions on locality based on the requirements of the
customer (ex - demography, intent of buying/renting, budget, etc)
● Introducing and explaining the location and property/home to the
home-seeker
● Suggestions in picking lawyers, builders/contractors,and banks for loans
● Act as a mediator in the high-value negotiations that happen between
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them and the sellers
Launch Strategy
Business Model

Housing can go with a freemium model. The features that are already provided for home-seekers right now,
can be kept free. Apart from this, there can be 3 levels of subscriptions (with increasing fee and features) as
shown below

1. Low Fee Model - This Model can include simple features like visibility of the category of home (
A-khata, B-khata), an option to look for high growth localities ( for investment seekers), along with
showing the historic growth rate.
2. Medium Fee Model - This Model can include better features like basic Fundamental Analysis of the
possible growth, data of previous sales in the vicinity, and access to an AI chat bot which can provide a
degree of personalised help
3. High Fee Model - This Model can have the high cost features like providing a consultant, contact of
customers who have previously made a purchase/renting in that area. These subscribers will also be
getting help in finding lawyers, contractors/builders based on their budget
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Launch Strategy ( Contd..)
Pricing

As the competitors have already started monetizing the home-seekers, it is very crucial to get the pricing of the
different subscription models right. Right pricing, especially in the initial launch stage (by providing discounts,
cashbacks, etc) will go hand in hand with marketing and word-of-mouth to help housing carve out a good
market share from the competitors. The following points need to be considered before fixing on a price

● The pricing model of competitors should be carefully analysed, and the pricing of housing can be
decided by adding a premium/discount for the extra/lesser features that housing provides for that level
of subscription. Decoy Pricing Strategy can be used to push the customer to go for the highest
subscription model
● It is very important that the pricing of the lowest subscription model is not higher than that of
competitors. This is because, customers will likely pay for this model first and then upgrade based on
their experience. Hence, before trust and word-of-mouth is established, the pricing of this level of
subscription should be kept lower.
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Launch Strategy ( Contd..)
Marketing

As the deal value of Real-estate is very high, trust becomes a very important factor in the minds of the
customer. Hence it is very important to establish trust among the customers. The following can be done to
achieve this

● In the ads that are run, housing should not only be portrayed as a money saving opportunity for the
home-seeker, but also as a trustable partner who has the best interest of the home-seeker at heart.
● The ad can show how a hard-working person was able to buy a plot for a good price in a good locality,
and get the best loans, lawyers, contractors (to build his home), save a lot of money on brokerage, and is
leading a happy life with his family due to the support and help provided by housing.
● A cash-back can be provided for the home-seekers who go through with the deal. This will not only
create trust, but also help in pushing the customer to pay for the subscription
● There can be an option for relatively low income households to get a discount on the subscriptions
(however, to prevent misuse of this feature, it should be limited to the first few days after the launch)
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Launch Strategy - Marketing Channels
● Majority of the home-seekers are above 40 years old
TV and Newspaper ● TV and Newspaper ads are a good way to reach out to this market
advertisements segment

● Cashbacks can be given for successful referrals

Referral and Repeat ● Repeat customers can be given discounts or can be upgraded to a
Customer Discounts higher subscription model

● People generally post on LinkedIn & Facebook when they move

Targeted to a new role (and a new city), or get married
Advertisements ● Targeted ads can be shown to these segment of users

● MNCs have 1000s of employees changing cities every year

Collaboration with ● The employees will trust a product suggested by their employer
MNCs when looking to buy/rent a home
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Launch Strategy - KPIs to be tracked

Percentage of people ● This is a very important metric which will help us track if the
using the features they features we are offering are the right ones
paid for ● The product offerings and pricing can be altered based on this

Ratio of customers ● This ratio will help us figure out which features the customers are
taking different valuing the most
subscription models ● These learnings can be used to optimize pricing

Sale conversions of ● This will tell us if the features provided in the subscriptions are
subscribers vs actually resulting in a seeker turning into a buyer/renter
non-subscribers ● This data will tell us if we have really reached PMF

● MNCs have 1000s of employees changing cities every year

Collaboration with ● The employees will trust a product suggested by their employer
MNCs when looking to buy/rent a home 11
References
1. https://www.ibef.org/industry/real-estate-india/infographic
2. https://www.cnbctv18.com/views/age-of-indian-homebuyers-across-decades-and-cities-44294
01.htm
3. https://www.outlookindia.com/business/homebuyers-are-getting-younger-average-age-is-now
-24-25-years--news-192451
4. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/wealth/real-estate/16-of-home-seekers-in-mumbai-are-
in-the-25-35-age-bracket-report/articleshow/71291606.cms
5. https://www.statista.com/statistics/955598/india-real-estate-industry-market-size/

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