People Interactive (the Shaadi Group) has launched a real estate portal called Makaan.com, and there’s a review up at ReviewSaurus (via WATBlog). Others in this classifieds space include MagicBricks (Times Group), 99acres (Naukri Group), Indiaproperty (Bharatmatrimony Group) and Jaaydaad. WATBlog has compared some of these sites, here. Notice how Naukri, Bharatmatrimony, Times and Shaadi are all in almost the same classifieds domains…one gets into it, and others follow. Then again, the likely reasoning in such cases is that more players in a particular segment help grow the market…but that’s in the short term.

Recently, during an earnings conference call, Naukri MD Sanjeev Bikhchandani had mentioned a slowdown in business for 99 Acres, because the government tightened credit in real estate and home loans. That situation may now be compounded by the current global liquidity crunch - no one knows how long this bearish trend will last. The supply of credit (including for Real Estate) is influenced by changes in interest rate, CRR and lack of liquidity. I would also imagine that the real estate portal business involves substantial offline work - contacting, educating brokers who might not be net-savvy.