Published: 23rd October 2008
New website to shake up Russian property portal market
New portal
Domavin.ru is aiming to transform the Russian property portal market with plans to list over a million properties within 12 months. The site, which will accept overseas listings within six to seven weeks, is currently in beta (testing phase) and already lists 20,000 properties in Moscow.
Founder, Ivailo Jordanov aims to have 300,000 listings live by the end of 2008 and is looking for partners to help expand internationally. Property listings can be pulled from agent and partner sites and the database fields (e.g. bedrooms, property type etc) are automatically translated into Russian. All basic listings are free with featured advertising available in popular regions.
Kim Waddoup, founder of Russian overseas property portal 1-property.ru, thinks Domavin.ru could struggle to maintain the quality of the translated listings. “The results from automatic translation we have seen have been poor. We pay careful attention to the quality of our listings, so all translations are done manually,” he says.
Although he recognizes it’s an issue, Jordanov believes the technology will improve significantly over time. “We are working with a system that learns from human [translation] mistakes,” he says, although he recognizes that full property descriptions may have to be translated manually until the technology develops further.
The Russian property portal market
Jordanov faces a market that is similar to the UK in the late 1990s, with lots of start-ups and a few big classified and portal players. The biggest site in terms of property volume is classified site IRR.ru which lists close to 600,000 adverts. Another major player is the Yahoo-esque site, Rambler.ru which provides a search engine, communication tools, classified adverts and articles from many verticals which include real estate. Mail.ru runs a similar model and includes classified real estate adverts. The stiffest competition however, will arguably come from Gdeetotdom.ru which is the largest property-only portal covering Russia, with close to 500,000 listings.
Overseas property portals
To a lesser extent (as it’s not Domavin’s core market), competition will come from the two established Russian overseas property sites, Prian.ru and 1property.ru. Prian.ru operates a free-to-list model, making money from upgrades. 1-property.ru operates a pay-per-property model and is part of the media group that includes
International Residence Magazine and the
Moscow International Property Show. Both sites offer manual translation services.
Deja vu anyone?
There is something strangely familiar about what’s going in Russia at the moment. A booming property market, rising internet take-up, a number of established traditional media players and new exhibition and internet companies launching into the market all the time. The parallels with the 1995 to 2005 UK market are compelling.
Why I’m backing Jordanov
In terms of generating leads from Russian buyers, the best bets are still arguably the established magazine and exhibition players and the two overseas portals mentioned above. In the long term however, if history teaches us anything it’s that the internet is a truly disruptive technology and the winners will be those that can achieve scale quickly and position themselves first in the consumer’s mind as offering the widest choice. Jordanov has the technology and the experience of launching
Zoomf in the UK. The question mark is the sales and marketing. They have a Moscow-based sales team and a big marketing campaign that starts in January. If I were a gambling man, I know who my money would be on.
Russian Overseas Property Portals Compared
Site
|
Positioning
|
Overseas?
|
Translation offered?
|
Prices
|
Domavin.ru
|
Russian property portal
|
In 6-7 weeks
|
In 6-7 weeks
|
Free, with paid-for upgrades
|
Rambler.ru
|
One-stop-shop like Yahoo
|
Yes
|
No
|
$1.18 per property
|
Mail.ru
|
One-stop-shop like Yahoo
|
No
|
No
|
Unknown
|
Gdeetotdom.ru
|
Russian property portal
|
No
|
No
|
Free, makes money from banners
|
IRR.ru
|
Large classified site
|
Yes
|
No
|
Unknown
|
Prian.ru
|
Overseas specialist
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Free, with paid-for upgrades
|
1-property.ru
|
Overseas specialist
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
€50 per property (free translation)
|
User Comments
Nice to see a new player. We will certainly give it a try and support all we can.
Roy Hayes, Kasas Royale.com
Roy Hayes,
Kasas Rotale.com
The site is currently only in Russian, is it attracting overseas investors or just concentrating on the Russian market?
Emma,
Medhead
Machine translation English - Russian is not of appropriate quality so far...
Olga Kellen,
www.english-and-russian.com
Automatic translations into Russian that will actually make sense? Ochen Smeshno.
Dan Johnson,
TheMoveChannel.com