However, Vinod still has SmartLoans and Textuate to play with. We understand from him that they were unable to generate enough traction with HomeSpace and RentSpace while SmartLoans is doing “pretty well”, and Textuate only recently launched so its progress remains to be seen.

Read an interview we did with Vinod back in 2007 on HomeSpace and check out our coverage on HomeSpace, RentSpace, SmartLoans and Textuate.

In the property portal space, it seems like PropertyGuru is doing well, with their latest partnership with SGCarMart.

Image credit: Paolo Camera

Whenever I hear the founder of a website say that their site is the first or only site performing some sort of service or offering some sort of new product, my heart skips a little bit. I want to believe that innovation can happen in Singapore. However, more often than not, the site succeeds in disappointing.

Propzee.com, founded by CEO Mr Jarrod Lee, is one such site.

In its press release, the company claims to be “The first in Singapore, and the region, Propzee is an integrated online real estate brokerage which provides a full agency service, from home searches to transaction closure.” I guess they forgot about PropNex.

Further down in the press release, the company states “Home sellers can advertise their homes without charge, unlike other websites which levy a charge for listing”. True, there are some other websites which charges their users to list their properties, unfortunately for Propzee, not all of them do. One such site homespace only charge agents or sellers when leads are generated.

Another selling point for the site is that home buyers only need 1 agent as a point of contact even if they are interested in multiple homes. That sounds nice but what if the properties I’m interested in are not all listed on one site (i.e. Propzee’s). Say 1 property is listed on iProperty.sg and 1 on Propzee. Won’t a home buyer still need to manage two different agents? For this service of Propzee to be a differentiating factor, it would need to have a very large, if not the largest, database of listings.

Propzee

The main problem with the site is that the front page spends all its screen estate trying to convince you why you should use their service instead of just providing you with a better interface to use their service. Take the three sites (i.e. http://propnex.com/, http://homespace.sg/, http://www.iproperty.com.sg/) mentioned above – once you hit the front page, you are presented with a wider set of tools and more information to help narrow your search.

homespace

iProperty

PropNex

Now, I haven’t used the site or its services to actually buy a property, so I can’t comment on their level of service. Their level of service might very well be a distinguishing factor from other agencies and online property portals.

The best thing about the site could be the fact that buyers can possibly get up to 50% of the commission paid by the seller as rebates. In other words, they can get a discount on their purchase.

The online property listings market is a crowded space. There are already many startups and established agencies competing for the attention of home buyers. Beyond the 50% of commission as rebate, there might not be much differentiating Propzee from the rest of the competitors.

Updated: CEO Jarrod Lee has responded to the post in the comments section below. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We would be grateful if readers can share their home buying experiences with any of the online sites.

Finally, the videos for the the Barcamp II – Maps and Mobile Unconference held on 21 May 2008 in NUS Extension, Park Mall are out. The event was organized by the combined team of Singapore PHP User Group, E27 (Garag3) and Barcamp Singapore. The second part focus on the Maps session and the demos presented by SingGeo, Shoplette, Lilihood, Homespace and Gary Chan – Nokia.

10 minutes demos by several companies utilizing Google Maps API

Gary Chan – Nokia, Singapore and Jon Petersen, SinGeo – http://www.singeo.com.sg

We have received from both Leonard Lin (co-founder of Tyler Projects) and Vinod Nair (co-founder of Homespace) that they are featured today in the Straits Times and Business Times respectively. The article to look out for Leonard is entitled “Budding entrepreneurs blaze new trials” on page HI7 dated 4 February 2008. In any case, we congratulate both Leonard and Vinod making on the press. You can check out their interviews with SGE: Leonard Lin and Vinod Nair.

The Real Group unveils HomeSpace.sg
The smarter way to find homes for sale

SINGAPORE, 29 Oct 07 – The Real Group launched HomeSpace.sg today, a powerful yet easy-to-use real estate search engine that effectively bridges buyer and seller in today’s hot property market. HomeSpace empowers sellers to easily post fuss-free listings via a simple online input in under 20 seconds. The platform, using only the home’s zip code, automatically populates the listing with the rest of the necessary information and maps it onto Google maps using its “SmartPins” technology which displays locational details for each property such as nearby schools, MRT stations and shopping malls.

While the proliferation of Internet use is notably high in Singapore, most users do not fully utilize its power in the real estate marketplace. “Sellers are usually mobile and away from their computers for most part of the day,” noted Vinod Nair, Chief Executive Officer of The Real Group. “How we’ve addressed this is to instantly deliver qualified property leads straight to them via SMS, making it remarkably convenient for them to contact buyers for their property while remaining mobile.”

“Creating a listing has never been easier. We have cut the time and effort needed to create one by over 80%,” said Timothy Kua, Director of Marketing. “All we really need are what we like to call ‘ZAP’ – Zip code, floor Area and Price – to put up a quality listing for you that is automatically furnished with road name, facilities if it’s a condo, nearby amenities like schools and malls and even the distance from these places. Gone are the days when every detail needs to be painfully filled out; now buyers can see almost everything you have to offer in just three easy steps. Of course, sellers can also add additional information such as the number of rooms and photographs just as easily on the website.”

HomeSpace strives to increase the value proposition to home-seekers looking for the best home within their budget. Vinod explained: “Buyers will appreciate the notably cleaner and uncluttered interface that is rid of irrelevant links and advertisements which are usually found engulfing other real estate websites. With our slick user-interface, wicked search technology and ‘Google-powered’ mapping system, we believe that HomeSpace will provide a user-experience so positive that buyers will repeatedly visit our website to conduct their home searches and also refer HomeSpace to their friends and families.”

As part of their launch promotion, HomeSpace is giving away 10 qualified leads for free per signup.

About The Real Group
The Real Group, comprising of six co-founding members from NUS and SMU, is a young, dynamic and passionate team committed to simplifying and enhancing the home-seeking process for Singaporeans by leveraging on advanced Internet and telephony technology. Half the team has had prior startup experience in Silicon Valley, California, as part of the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) program. To find out more about The Real Group and HomeSpace, visit www.homespace.sg.

Perhaps HomeSpace.sg has chosen a good time to launch their online real estate site with all the real estate fervour in Singapore. Here, we catch Vinod Nair, founder and CEO of HomeSpace for an interview. He brings us his story of this young startup.

Gwen: Hi Vinod, thanks for accepting this email interview. First, can you tell us more about your background and what you are currently doing?
Vinod: I’m currently an undergrad at the School of Computing in NUS majoring in Communications and Media. I spent a year in Silicon Valley working at a software startup and studying at Stanford as part of the NUS Overseas Colleges Program.

I’m currently the CEO of The Real Group a real estate search company. We’ve just beta launched our flagship product HomeSpace.sg, the smarter way to find homes for sale. With our proprietary proximity sensing technology, SmartPins, all homes are able to detect amenities such as transportation, schools and shopping malls within walking distance.

Gwen: What is HomeSpace?
Vinod: HomeSpace is a “no-nonsense” platform that’s clean and uncluttered, developed a search function that’s powerful yet easy to use, and implemented a map interface that’s detailed and informative with updated and non-bogus real estate listings.

We understand that searching for real estate can be a real hassle. We also know that sometimes, all you really want is to find out what’s out there for sale in Singapore, and with as much relevant and important information at hand, make the right decisions without needing to pop too many panadol pills in the process.

Gwen: What got you motivated to start Homespace.sg? What’s the story behind it?
Vinod: Well, when I was in Silicon Valley, I realized that all the real estate sites were so much more than just a bunch of listings. Listings were on maps and they provided valuation estimates that help people sell or make the decision to sell their homes.

I realised that there was nothing like that in Singapore. The closest anyone came to that was a simple implementation of Google maps which didn’t really leverage on its full capability.

Gwen: What were the initial challenges and difficulties that you faced as an entrepreneur?
Vinod: I would have to say my biggest initial challenge was forming the core team. Getting the right people on board was my first priority. Convincing people to work for “nothing” is never easy.. They have to feel as passionate as you do about the idea and want to take it from an idea to a product.

Another big hurdle was trying to adapt after a mediocre alpha launch. We realized that even though we had a better product, it was an uphill battle getting agents to put up their listings on a relatively unknown site. At the same time, we couldn’t market the site until we had enough listings… and that was the biggest setback.

Looking back, it was actually a good thing it didn’t work out. Because it prompted us to think how we could overcome this problem and further increase barriers to entry.

Gwen: What made you decide to bootstrap the company?
Vinod: Bootstraping is another tough decision. It’s one thing to put in a lot of time. But when it comes to betting your last dollar, it’s a different thing altogether… That’s when you can tell if you and your team really believe in the idea.

It’s always a better idea to take funding as far down as possible. The more you are able to mitigate risk, the more bargaining power you have! Of course, if you can’t sustain, don’t be stupid.. TAKE THE MONEY!

Gwen: On The Real Group’s homepage, we see links to both HomeSpace.sg and RentSpace.sg. Why are you focusing on Homespace / home buying market first?
Vinod: We’re actually going to be launching both in quick succession. I feel that the home buying and rental markets are two different ball games. As such we decided to separate the sites and provide focused features and marketing to each site.

Gwen: What is your business model?
Vinod: I think that no one has successfully bridged the online-offline chasm yet. A large majority of agents do not advertise online because they don’t know how or because they think it doesn’t work.

People are also unwilling to invest cash upfront on a system that they don’t know will lead to sales. This was the problem with web advertising a few years ago. We’ve come up with a pretty innovative solution for this problem… And you’ll get to see it first hand when HomeSpace launches next week.

Gwen: Any plans to expand outside Singapore?
Vinod: Of course! :) Once the technology is stable, we’ll be looking into expanding internationally. We’ll need to better understand the real estate climate in other countries before we decide to do that, but we should have presence in at least 3 countries in a year.

Gwen: What are the three important lessons you believe that young entrepreneurs of today should learn through your experience?
Vinod: F**k it. Just do it!

Gwen: Thanks, Vin!

Editor’s note: Vinod wishes to let everyone know that the site is currently at the alpha stage for real estate agents only. So check back soon next week for listings!