Thursday, 12 March 2015 01:30
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By Charumini de Silva
The real estate and construction industry sectors are presently experiencing a boom and this trend is set to continue through the coming years, a real estate specialist said.
Since 2005 the real estate market has reflected the country’s economic growth momentum and the industry had grown from 7.6% in 2005 to 10.3% in 2013.
Lamudi Sri Lanka Managing Director Hugh van der Kolff said that the luxury condominium market had picked up steadily and with large projects such as the JKH Waterfront, Altair and Colombo City Centre coming up there would be significant demand created.
He said that a key market driver in the luxury condominium segment was the huge number of Sri Lankan expatriates. “There are three key market segments: the Sri Lankan diaspora, foreigners and high-end Sri Lankan customers.”
He added that international interest in the Sri Lankan real estate industry had picked up. “It is important to note that quite a lot of investment is flowing into the country from abroad,” Kolff explained.
An increasing number of Sri Lankans have moved online to make the most of web-based services, including tools for finding property to buy or rent.
“This will be the next wave of development in the real estate sector,” Kolff asserted.
He made these remarks at the launch yesterday of the ‘Dial 4 Home’ service, which allows homebuyers to call a hotline to find property for sale or rent in Colombo.
Kolff said that although 25% of the population had access to the internet, there was still room for improvement. In the real estate business, offline methods were still the most established systems followed and thus the ‘Dial 4 Home’ service would bridge this gap.
Noting that there was healthy competition from other real estate websites, Kolff added that the number of visits to Lamudi.lk had increased considerably since its launch in Sri Lanka. “We get around 4,500 to 5,000 hits per day and it’s growing,” he noted.
The new service will put offline house hunters in touch with a broad selection of property listings from the Lamudi website. The service is designed to simplify property searches by allowing house hunters to use a single platform to find their ideal home, Kolff said. “All you have to do is dial 0114500123 and properties will come to you,” he stated.
