Lamudi excites market with Dial4Home buying, renting platform
In a move to spice up the property market, Lamudi, Nigeria’s leading online real estate market place, is offering home buyers opportunity to inquire about properties either to buy or rent through mere phone call to a new dedicated hotline.
The never-before-seen innovation, the firm explains, is its latest effort to extend access to the country’s largest database of properties to an estimated 50 million mobile users who do not have access to the internet via smartphones and tablets to visit its website.
With over 120 active telecommunications lines, Nigeria seems a market with significant potential for internet-based businesses, but with an excess of 60 percent of all internet connections made from just 12 million smartphone and tablet devices, it is evident there are more than four times as many mobile subscribers who do not have access to the Internet via their device.
“Technological innovation is not only about what you can achieve on the internet,” Obi Ejimofo, Managing Director of Lamudi Nigeria, said at the product launch in Lagos.
Ejimofo explained that Dial4Home was developed to assist property-seekers who have little or no access to the internet, through voice calls and short message sending (SMS).
“We need to ensure technology remains relevant, accessible and valuable to the broadest spectrum of users,” he added, pointing out that the new platform offers a wide selection of properties from affordable housing to luxury accommodation.
According to him, users of the Dial4Home product would be able to get over-the-phone access to listings from over 7,000 property agents and developers who currently list their properties on the Lamudi website.
“Ever since our launch just over a year ago, we have always had the intention to bring Dial-4-Home to the market. In 2014 we focused most of our efforts on building the broadest possible database of properties, real estate agents and property developers to ensure maximum customer choice. Now we are extending that choice to as many Nigerians as possible,” he said.
The firm is optimistic that with an estimated 100,000 monthly visitors to its website Dial4Home hotline would further propel the brand’s growth.
Ejimofo also dispelled insinuations that the innovation would eventually inflate prices of properties on its platform, saying, “we do not conduct financial transaction but rather link up property buyers and sellers and with over 40,000 listings on our database, this gives any buyer the necessary advantage to compare prices before making decisions.”