Company celebrates tenth birthday by posting record growth in users and leads in 2017
Number of leads generated, and properties sold through the website displays the unparalleled opportunities it provides both sellers and landlords

Sri Lanka’s leading real estate website, LankaPropertyWeb.com, recorded another successful year in 2017, showing an extraordinary growth in traffic and other vital metrics to the website. Buoyed by the demand for rentals, new developments and sales, the website has recorded a significant increase in the number of users, visits, duration of the visit and most importantly, in the number of leads generated to advertisers and closed sales and lets.

With close to 2 million users conducting around 4 million visits and over 17,000 advertisersposting their properties or offering a variety of property-related services, the website continues to be the “go to place” for prospective and serious customers, including both buyers and sellers of real estate. 
At the end of December 2017, LankaPropertyWeb.com had recorded a percentage growth of 22 percent in the total number of visits to the site, compared to the previous year.This growth in the visits is underlined by the 18% growth recorded in the number of users; while the company recorded a little over 1.6 million users by the end of 2016, this had grown to 1.94 million users by the end of 2017.  With increases in both users and the visits, notably the duration of the visitshad also increased, indicating an overall percentage growth of 18 percent. In short, the duration of a visit increases as the website is able to offer more options and choices for the users to browse and select from. It is also proof that the users have shown a keen interest on the properties advertised.

In addition to the traffic, another notable achievement is a staggering 61% increase in the number of leads for the advertisements posted on the website.  A lead is recognised as a visitor contacting an advertiser via email or telephone after seeing the advertisement on the site. This would mean advertisers on the site received 932,996 leads overall for the ads that they had placed.  Once a lead has been established, the next important step is closing the deal: 54% of advertisers have said that they have managed to sell or rent their property via LankaPropertyWeb.com. According to Alexa Rankings, the website has also managed to increase the gap with competitors, with a 3x gap with the closestcompetitor forwebsite visits.

The simplicity and user-friendly design of the website was duly recognised when it was adjudged the Winner of the Best Website in the Professional Services Category at the SLT Zero-One Awards 2017. This fact appears evident especially in the growing popularity of the website with mobile users. With the promise of ease of access and convenience, the number of mobile users had increased by 39 percent, growing to over 1.2 million users by 2017. 

In addition to offering a wide range of property options, for sale or rent, the site also offers additional property-related services and information. These include a house price index, the tracking of the average property prices in Sri Lanka and guides and tools such as a Mortgage calculator and guides to locals and foreigners on navigating Sri Lanka’s property related legal framework.  

Behind the success of the site has also been the company’s ability to identify the changing trends in the sector and responding to these by adapting its services accordingly. 

“We keep a keen eye on these changing dynamics. The sector has remained vibrant and interest in real estate continues to be really high, especially regarding new developments. For us, it is extremely important that we offer a user-friendly platform through the website and that we keep things simple and user-friendly. What is unique is also that we offer a comprehensive list of services, so in a sense, we have created a virtual one-stop-shop for those interested in the real estate sector.  This, I believe, has greatly helped us carve a niche in the property sector and helped us win the trust of both the users and the advertisers. 

The figures for 2017 shows that not only does the website bring in the visitors, but it also delivers on the vitals that are important for both sellers and landlords, by generating leads and providing leads resulting in a majority of advertisers managing to sell or rent the properties.” stated Daham Gunaratna, Managing Director of Lanka Property Web. 

With several property-related events and product launches planned for 2018, including hosting theLanka Property show for the second time this year, Lanka Property Web is anticipating continued growth of the sector. The company will continue to improve its technology and services to the users, helping them at each step of their property buying and selling process and by doing so,keep them abreast of the changing trends in the sector in 2018.