www.shaproperty.com

Sep 17, 2007

Catcha.com founder starts portal for property

Website users can access details of 300,000 deals in the last 15 years

By Chua Hian Hou

HE WAS famous for being one of the poster boys of the dot.com boom.

Now, seven years after an aborted attempt to list search engine Catcha.com, Mr Patrick Grove is back with a new website aimed at cashing in on the red-hot property market.

The portal, iProperty (www.iproperty.com.sg), allows users to find out the prices at which their neighbours sold or rented their homes.

For a fee, home buyers and sellers will be able to access an archive detailing 300,000 transactions over the past 15 years, right down to the unit number.

The service will be launched in the next two months. This is the first time such detailed information will be publicly available, said Mr Grove, the executive chairman of IPGA, the company running the website.

Currently, publicly available data, such as that on the Housing Board's website, goes only as far as block numbers. This, he said, is not enough as specific characteristics of certain flats can affect the prices they fetch.

For instance, a flat can command a high price if it offers a good view of the surrounding area and an auspicious number. But another unit in the same block might be unsaleable, even at a discount, if it has an inauspicious number and overlooks a rubbish collection point.

Pricing for the service is still being worked out, but for each apartment block or condominium that a user requests data on, he is likely to pay about $50.

Those unwilling to pay can still access listings from the past 15 years at the website - launched last Thursday - for free. Although these are not actual transactions, they should still give a sense of price trends.

The data is not comprehensive, Mr Grove admits, though it is based on transactions by 15,000 agents from companies such as PropNex and Dennis Wee Properties. These agents are estimated to make up 80 per cent of the active real estate agents in Singapore.

IPGA, which runs websites in Malaysia and the Philippines, made a profit of $300,000 last year. But this was wiped out by listing fees incurred when it made its debut on the Australian bourse last week.

Mr Grove, 34, is worth an estimated $20 million from his shares in IPGA and a 17-title magazine publishing business - 'a means to survive' after the dot.com bubble burst.

He returned to the Internet arena four years ago with iProperty Malaysia, now the country's top property website.

The second time around though, 'we were a lot more cost-conscious...three staff ran that website for a long time'. Even with $9.5 million in the bank, thanks to the public listing, he has a staff of only 20, split evenly between Malaysia and Singapore.

chuahh@sph.com.sg