Buying property online is the new way to go, says Rushayidi

Alain Rushayidi is the senior account manager at Lamudi, a web-based portal that links buyers and sellers in the real estate market. The company operates in 32 countries across the globe, 22 of which are in Africa, Rwanda inclusive. How did you end up in real estate? I had never been in real estate before coming to Lamudi. It’s circumstances that just came up. I was working with Hello Food, a sister company to Lamudi, and the new country manager for Lamudi was looking for someone who is active and prominent in terms of talking to customers, and who had that aspect of flexibility. I met the country manager and we had a very good conversation and I was really excited about the new position. In life I like challenges and I felt this was a good challenge for me. As account manager I’m in charge of customer relations, so I’m physically in touch with clients on a daily basis. What’s the rationale for this particular business model? We are in a country where the government puts in a lot of effort in terms of investment in IT infrastructure. We have a total population of 12 million in Rwanda, of which 7.6 million are mobile phone subscribers, which is more than half of the population. We have another three million people that use internet. With the 4G infrastructure being rolled out throughout the country, we are going to see a rise in the number of people using internet. All these platforms are accessible to anybody with minimum knowledge of using the tools –that is, computer, internet, and smart phones, because we have a mobile app for smart phones. In Kigali, you now have access to free Wi-Fi on public buses. Three to four years from now, we will see more people looking for services online. In technologically developed countries, as much as 90% of people searching for properties are doing it online. So I think the potential is there, and the market is there. It’s just a matter of how we convince people to embrace it. Currently we have web traffic of about 35,000 people per month. Is Lamudi a competitor to real estate dealers and agents? We are not competitors to real estate agents but instead we are an added value to them. As you know, Lamudi is neither a real estate company nor a broker. We are an online portal which links the demand and supply aspects of the real estate market. Real estate agents deal with their clients on commission terms, but at Lamudi we do not take commissions. What we charge is a subscription fee at the end of the month. Real estate companies can use our web traffic to aid their businesses. We operate in a total of 32 countries, and we provide all the listings from all these countries under one portal. Do you work with individual house brokers? If so, how? Yes we do, and at the beginning it was a challenge. Most of them considered us to be a rival business that was coming to snatch away their clients. The limitation of brokers is that while they may have properties, that information is only confined to their heads. So I can see you as a house broker on the street, but I can’t know the houses you have inside your head. If anything, how will I even know that you are an agent? With Lamudi, these brokers just bring their listings with pictures and detailed descriptions of the properties. Each broker has their own account on our portal, complete with their contacts, so clients can call them directly, so it’s for their benefit and profit. The next stage will be to convince them to see the sense in paying for this service. Currently we are working with 70 agents, but we could take in as many as 300 because they are many out there. The major problem we face is the lack of a proper regulatory framework for the industry. Most of the brokers joined the trade due to joblessness, so they start off with no minimum qualifications or standards.

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Buying property online is the new way to go, says Rushayidi