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Taking Shanghai real estate to the next level: Buy your next house online
Forget trekking to your local real estate office, Sina now lets buyers do everything online from finding a house to putting down a deposit
In the market for a new apartment? The new Sina Leju site lets you search online.The government might be trying to cool the Shanghai real estate bubble, but Sina, China’s largest web portal, isn’t helping much, as it launches what it’s marketing as “China’s largest online vertical real estate service platform.”
The service, Sina Leju, according to M.I.C Gadget, allows buyers to forgo the trip to the realtor’s office and purchase property online.
Some 180 of 601 units listed on the site sold the first day -- nothing compared to the run on Porches -- but not shabby either.
According to the site, the aim is to offer more options in one place than a traditional real estate office, and capitalize on China's massive social media network.
"With the innovative concept of [a] ‘Real Estate Society,’" reads a post on the site, "Sina Leju presents both [the opportunity for] massive traffic and massive data [offerings], combining professional online media and professional real estate."
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If buyers don’t quite feel right about shopping in their pajamas, they can go to Sina Leju centers where they can browse and take virtual tours on a tablet and ask sales people questions.
If they like what they see, they can make the down payment on Alipay. A few clicks and the house is theirs.
The relatively slow sales on the sites first day shows Sina Leju will have to win people's trust, but in a coutry where people can already apply to jobs via microresumes on weibo, the idea of online sales for major purchases seems to have at least a few takers.
“This is my first time purchasing real estate like this," said a buyer quoted by Tech.china.com. "The experience was good though, I just put my apartment in the cart, then purchased it all online.”
Although the properties available online aren’t discounted, Sina Leju does allow customers to negotiate discounts if they are group buying.
If property hunters decide to purchase online, it might make things easier but it won’t get them around Beijing's or Shanghai’s one family, one house policy that came into effect in late 2010 to limit speculation in the real estate market.
