Housing.com, the popular online real estate platform has acquired Indian Real Estate Forum (IREF) for a price of Rs. 8 crore. Through this purchase, the company is aiming to provide helpful content to buyers on its buying platform.
IREF claims to have a base of about 1.5 lakh active users on its forum. It offers unbaised and transparent information about new real estate projects, developers, plots and brokers.
As per the deal, the IREF will work as an independent identity under Ravish Naresh who is the co-founder of Housing.com. The deal is expected to close in coming weeks.
The company is also planning to start a new “Ask Me Anything” feature on the forum where people can ask doubts related to projects and builders.
Housing.com is a Mumbai-based company which recently received funding of about $90 million in December from SoftBank and Falcon Edge Capital.
Its competitor – Commonfloor raised funding from Google Capital in January. India’s online real-estate sector has seen a huge boom in the recent past. American media giant NewsCorp recently infused a staggering $30 Million into PropTiger.com whereas SoftBank’s India love continued when it led an astounding $90 Million round into Housing.com
While the buy-out seems to be a perfect match, it may have a serous impact on IREF’s image, considering that members may start feeling a bit of Housing influence on a platform,which was designed for being independent.
