Kaidee, Thailand's largest online marketplace, is expanding with a new section, BaanKaidee, to capitalise on the 600-million-baht online property advertising market.
According to the Digital Advertising Association of Thailand and TNS, property ranks seventh out of 10 categories in digital advertising, with the sector expected to contribute 612 million baht out of a total of 14.4 billion baht in digital ads this year in Thailand. Online property ads are projected to have growth of 124% from 2017.
"Online property in Thailand is still underserved compared with the overall property market, which is dominated by traditional channels," said Tiwa York, chief executive and head coach at Kaidee.
In 2017, property ownership transfers in Thailand totalled 524,000 units. This was split into 52% residential units and 48% other types such as land and commercial buildings. The total value of transfers was nearly 1.2 trillion baht.
"We expect a rapid change in the coming years," Mr Tiwa said.
Property has been the third most popular category on Kaidee since 2016. To improve service for the group, Kaidee introduced a dedicated section called BaanKaidee (Baan.Kaidee.com), enhancing the user interface to make it easier to navigate.
In the first half of 2018, more than 10 million Thais visited BaanKaidee, with over 150 million page views. During the period, 4,307 properties were sold with a total value of more than 8.6 billion baht.
Mr Tiwa said Kaidee has a greater variety and lets people buy, sell and rent real estate such as houses, condos, land, offices, commercial properties, resorts and hotels.
The channel is equipped with new features for better navigation to quickly and easily connect buyers and sellers. BaanKaidee aims to be the leading real estate marketplace in the country.
"We've seen a shift in consumer behaviour in the past two years, as people were previously looking for condos and houses, but now they search for all kinds of property online," Mr Tiwa said.
According to Kaidee, the 10 most popular property types are houses for rent, detached houses, land, condos, rooms for rent, subsidised housing, garden homes, wooden houses, riverfront and sea view.
The five most popular search terms in Bangkok on BaanKaidee are Lat Phrao, Lumpini, Ram Intra, On Nut and Phatthanakan.
Beyond Bangkok, people are looking in Chiang Mai, Chon Buri, Rayong, Nakhon Ratchasima and Khon Kaen.
In October, Facebook launched its own property marketplace in Thailand, the first country in Asia-Pacific to have the service, with a focus on long housing rentals.