S:15

Case
Prepared by
group 4:
Ankith Kashyap (002)
Neha Gupta (008)
Rijul Gaur (014)
Swapnil Sakpal (021)
1
Q 1 What was the motivation behind finding property guru? What
were the key pain points of customers in the property market
when property guru was formed?

3
 Answer 1 In 2006, Steve Melhuish, a British National was
looking for a property in Singapore. He was used
to looking for properties online, which was by then
the normal in the UK and most of Europe.
However, when he tried to find properties online in
Singapore, he realized that the only way to
Established in 2007 as a perform a reliable property search in the city was
property search platform, through reading thousands of newspaper and
agents driven.
PropertyGuru had grown
After his own personal experience in finding property
from a small Singapore- in Singapore through agents, Melhuish decided to
based start-up to a establish the Online Property Portal Company to
company with operations in increase transparency and “empower consumers
five countries across make confident property decisions”.
Southeast Asia. In May 2007, he established Property Guru, along
with co-founder Jani Rautiainen. This online property
portal business model had worked successfully and
profitably in many countries, including France,
Germany, China, and Japan and Melhuish was
confident that it would work in Singapore as well. 4
 Key Pain Points of Customers in property market was
Answer 1 Offline & Agent Led Property Search. Mainly
Customers were depended on agents for their
property requirement and related works Like :

1.Customers has to search the property through

listed properties by agents.
2.Both Buyers and sellers has to pay commission to
agents
3.All the data related to property was managed
manually by agents, which made the process in-
efficient and time consuming

5
 Question 2

?
What was the business model of
property guru and its key value
proposition? What was the revenue
model of property guru?

6
Answer 2 PropertyGuru followed a simple formula to grow as
a start-up: acquire listings, build consumer traffic,
and monetize the business model. By focusing on
data that was generated by the platform on a daily
basis, PropertyGuru was able to fine tune the user
experience to increase consumer traffic and
worked on providing positive user experiences. "So
the strategy was to attract more and more
customers to the platform by building supplier
volume,"

The company's revenue model was crafted

strategically to maximize monetization and target
different customer segments, directing more than
one source of revenue generation. There were three
segments of customers – Property seekers, Agents
and Property developers. the company was able to
triple its revenue by 2011 and doubling its traffic in
the process.
4
Answer 2

The revenue model was made of three

components:
1.Subscription fee charged to agents using the
platform
2.Revenue from advertising for agents (by selling
ad spots on its online property portal and printed
newsletter)
3.Revenue from support activities for campaigns by
property developers through the entire campaign
lifecycle (from advertising to sales).

4
 Question 3

?
What was the initial growth strategy of property
guru? Why did Property Guru felt encouraged to
invest in its data capabilities?

8
 The home buying and selling process was complex
Answer 3 and could take months to complete. In Singapore,
property seekers took an average of seven months
from starting their property search to closing a
transaction. Improving the user experience was a
key objective and strategy to grow the platform.
Their Key Focus was :
1.To understand consumer behavior - What are our
consumers looking for, what are the triggers of their
purchase behavior? –
2.To help Customers to find their property in a more
efficient way.
3.To reduce the property search period. For Example :
a typical rental search process-cycle takes three to
four weeks, whereas a purchase process takes six to
eight months.
Initially PropertyGuru worked on idea of a
transparent marketplace for property-seekers came
into being and later they visioned to form a “property
trust platform”. 4
 Answer 3
To have a seamless User Experience – for both
Consumers and Agents encouraged the Property
Guru to invest in Data Capabilities.

Market Segmentation: To understand customer behavior based on the type of properties they
wanted to purchase, their budget, and their unique characteristics. To effectively implement
customer segmentation, PropertyGuru used data clustering methods to find associations in data and
segment it into clusters. For Example : if property seekers from different economic backgrounds had
children of the same age group, their property requirements would share some similarities despite
their budge differences, and hence they could be in the same cluster.
Clustering was also applied on property characteristics, producing three key residential property
groups, namely
1. landed properties : Bungalows, semi-detached houses and terraced houses.
2. Non-landed properties : comprised condominiums and apartments, and cluster houses.
3. Public housing: housing development board (HDB) properties.
4. Primary (Newly Built) & Secondary Market (Re-Sale)

4
 Answer 3

Agent Platform : One of the first tools PropertyGuru implemented to attract agents was the
AgentNet platform. The objective was to make them more successful. If the agent is not successful,
the agent will not renew with us. So it makes sense for us to ensure that we provide agents with the
right tools to succeed. Benefits :
1.agents could do better negotiations based on the information in the report.
2.demand of the property : agents to decide how long the property would require to be listed.
3.the analytics report allowed agents to compare prices of similar properties to determine the value
of the property they wanted to list – by understanding the amenities and proposed future
developments around that property.
4.The 'Conversion Funnel' concept was used to guide agents to improve their listing performance.
5.Data like the recent selling price of similar properties in the same district with the same size and
similar features, pricing insights reports, market news articles, and a yearly market outlook report
offered by the platform helped agents determine property prices more effectively.
4
 Answer 3

Advanced Search for Property Seekers : PropertyGuru also made it a point to collect data at
every point of interaction to help property seekers make more confident decisions like area,
postal code, address.
One of the key drivers for both new user acquisition and visitor engagement was content
marketing - in which rich, useful and proprietary content was not only used to differentiate
itself from its competitors, but also to provide utility to consumers. However, the focus was
not as much on Big Data, but rather on small data. The portal personalised the property
search for the user by weighing this score against customizable criteria such as size, price
per square foot, location, tenure, and age of the property.

4
 Question 4

?
What are some of the advanced applications of
AI and Deep Learning in the company? While
answering maintain a distinction between pure
deep learning and AI applications.

8

Answer 4
Property Guru used AI-
driven solutions, particularly
around property
recommendations and
Deep Learning techniques
to have right content –
pricing trends and Quality
images of property.
AI Application : Recommendation Based
Recommending properties is very different from recommending
products on an e-commerce platform. with limited inventory i.e one
house can only be sold to one person unlike on e-commerce websites.
To put the right set of properties in front of customers, so they can
make informed decisions.
The recommendation engine implemented cluster analysis of property
listings based on the similarity of the properties. It also provided a
market basket analysis of enquiries based on similarities of user
behavior and recommendation were based on behavior search. Key
features of the recommendation engine included display of properties
relevant to the search, a chat function which took into account the
user's search behaviour, and an additional list of 'handpicked'
properties for users to access.
Initially, basic collaborative filtering-based recommendations were
used, in which the recommendations were guided by what people who
displayed similar behaviour were doing. Since Property search is
different compare to e-commerce or OTT. Firstly, property inventories
were limited, especially in the resale market. Secondly, unlike e-
commerce, where a customer's search and purchase behaviour could
be observed over multiple visits to provide better recommendations, a
property seeker did not purchase a property multiple times. Thirdly,
property buying was a limited period experience - albeit the most
important purchase a consumer made over his/her lifetime. 4
 Deep Learning Technique : With limited inventory to
Answer 4 handle PropertyGuru used deep learning methods to
understand to customer interest like they wanted high
rise building or spacious area. Model leverages the
image quality in understanding the need. Usually
property buyers often do very focused searches gives us
a lot of information. In case of property searches,
consumers are more willing to share this information,
because those are important criteria. So, they can rely
on explicit interest of users, based on their search terms
and filters rather than on implicit browsing behaviour.
The AI function started learning about user preferences.
This could be anything from location to the number of
bedrooms and property type. When a listing is created
by an agency, for example, AI rates listing the moment
this is done. Among other things, it analyses the images
uploaded for quality. It can check if the image is valid
and if the agent is on the image with a phone number.
We know that visitors don't like the agent's face and
phone number on images, which in turn reduces the
response rates. AI can flag this during the list creation
process. Monitoring this permanently ultimately leads
to better content quality. 4
 1.PropertyGuru implemented an algorithm called
Answer 4 Optimus to calculate ad credits for post, repost, boost,
and spotlight of a listing. 14 Optimus took into
consideration the demand of consumers and supply of
listings, according to the property type, location,
project, and other parameters. The key metrics used to
measure this were based on the number of visitors, the
total number of listings, the average price of the
property, leads generated on the listings, etc.
Depending on the score that was calculated through
the algorithm, some listings could require fewer ad
credits to post, repost, boost, or spotlight; while others
could need more.
2.PropertyGuru launched a mobile-based application
called PropertyGuru Lens. The application allowed users
to focus their phone camera on any residential building
and ask the platform to interpret the image and
perform a search and show listings of units that were
available for purchase or rent in the requested building.

4
 Question 5

?
Why did property guru build a customized
recommender system?

13
 The first step towards incorporating ML was the building of a
Answer 5 'Recommender System' to allow the
platform to suggest to consumers property choices they were likely
to be interested in. The vision
was to provide users an enjoyable experience while propelling
incremental revenue, similar to
companies like Amazon, Netflix, Linkedin and Spotify who had used
recommendation systems to
conceive new products and offerings.

The recommendation engine implemented cluster analysis of

property listings based on the similarity of the properties. It also
provided a market basket analysis of enquiries based on similarities
of user behaviour.

The algorithms were trained to recognise behavioral cues to

determine the kind of properties users were looking for and the
content they were likely to be interested in. Its recommendations on
properties became tailored, smarter, and more accurate. Key features
of the recommendation engine included display of properties
relevant to the search, a chat function and an additional list of
'handpicked' properties for users to access.

14
Answer 5
However, because property was a special purchase,
buyers often focused on specific criteria rather
than general criteria, thus reducing implicit browsing
behaviour. Research had revealed that evaluating
houses was a profoundly personal process. Different
buyers looked for different characteristics in a house.
Not all aspects were considered commensurably; hence
the algorithms were designed to assign different
weights to various features. This allowed each property
to be allocated a weighted sum score. A house was
considered more desirable if its weighted score was
higher. Some attributes were considered desirable (ex.
well light and well ventilated) and weighted positively,
while others were considered undesirable (such as
rooms without windows, less storage space) and
weighted negatively.

14
Q6 What emerging trends should Property Guru explore to attain its
vision?

3
 1.Personalized Search Option for customers by robo advising -
Answer 6 Using Concepts like virtual coach and Facebook groups, which
acted as collective-conscious mentors for agents, were also
gaining traction.
2.Blockchain : the technology underlying bitcoin, had also
emerged as a viable virtual currency and real estate pilots in
some countries were already demonstrating its potential to
revolutionize digital databases and trusted business
transactions. A blockchain was defined as a shared ledger in a
computer network that was accessible by all stakeholders. The
introduction of smart contracts in blockchain platforms had
enabled assets like real estate to be tokenised and traded in
cryptocurrency like bitcoin.
However, blockchain technology was expected to have its own
set of challenges. A key issue – a. Longer time for transaction
due to the involvement of multiple parties. B. Verification of
the identity of involved parties could also be cumbersome.
Many countries did not have an official ID for all residents. It
was, therefore, essential to complement blockchain with ID
identification or other personal identification technologies like
biometric analysis which could help make the process less
cumbersome.

4
Answer 6

3.Paperless tenancy renewal solution for customers to renew their

tenancy through a simple declaration.
4.Virtual Simulation : Many real estate agents had started to use virtual
simulation technology to allow customers to visualise property units
and configurations before purchasing newly built properties.
5.Dot It Yourself (DIY) real estate portals were also gaining traction as
consumers gained more confidence in making decisions on their home
purchase using the online channel. The DIY approach tried to remove
the agent from the real estate transaction by allowing sellers to list, sell,
compare and transact and seekers to search, find, loan and transact for
their property themselves.
6.Renovation & Interior Design Services.

4
 The End by
Group 4!
THANK YOU

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