People Interactive (Shaadi Group) is planning to spend Rs. 40 crores over the next two years on portal Makaan.com, the real estate portal it had launched recently [via BS]. Other real estate classifieds portals like Magic Bricks (Times Group) and 99Acres (Naukri Group) have been around for a while now, which perhaps necessitates this spend - group CMD Anupam Mittal says that Rs. 8 crore will be spent on promotion, and around 300 people will be hired.

Mittal claims Makaan already has offices with 3-4 people in the top 14 cities, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the company is using the Shaadi.com offices. So did the Shaadi group pick up Makaan.com in the secondary domainer market? If yes, how much do you think they paid for it?