Shelter online

Bob, a 22-year-old student from the United States, recently found a new way to rent an apartment in Beijing.

With the click of mouse, he accessed the website of world.soufun.com, an English-language version of the country's largest real estate portal, and began his search for new accommodations.

"I used to look for apartments through posters put up on campus or through my friends here," Bob says. "But online searching is a more convenient way for me, as I can choose by just selecting from pull-down menus about the district, bedroom numbers and rental range."

Bob finally narrowed his choices to several apartments in the Haidian district, with rents ranging from 5,000 yuan to 5,500 yuan per month, an acceptable price for that location, he says.

He also found a navigation menu on the left of the website with information about settling in to life in China, including how to open a bank account, how to find nearby schools and other amenities and how to locate restaurants.

The website, launched on March 20, is SouFun Holding's first step to sign up overseas users.

Now in its initial stage, SouFun provides English information on new and rental homes in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin.

"The English version is only the starting point. Already in the pipeline is the development of Japanese and Korean sites, followed by Russian and French versions," says Vincent Mo, SouFun's founder and chief executive officer.

"Hopefully, we are going to expand our services to overseas next year, with primary choices in East and South Asia.".

SouFun already has a website in Hong Kong in its early stages.

Established in 1999, SouFun, which is Mandarin for "house search", provides information, advertising and listing services to China's growing online real estate and home furnishing and improvement sectors.

SouFun's urge to tap into the international market is largely due to its foreign shareholder Telstra Corp Ltd, Australia's largest telecommunications and information service company.

Telstra sealed a $254-million deal to acquire 51 per cent of SouFun Holdings Ltd in late August, making it the largest investment in China's Internet sector last year. In return, Beijing-based SouFun vowed to maintain 100 percent growth for the following two years.

The ever-increasing demand for home rentals and purchases by foreigners on the mainland is certainly an appealing market.

Statistics show that more than 400,000 foreign nationals are living and working in China. The number of foreign work permits issued grew by over 50 percent in 2002 and has since been growing at double-digit rates year on year.

According to Mercer Human Resources Consultancy, over half of the multinationals with offices in China said in March they plan to hire more foreigners within the next 12 months.

Although other major real estate portals are also eyeing the opportunity, Soufun is the first one to realize it.

"It is good to be the first,"Mo says.

Statistics show that the online real estate advertising market in China was worth $85 million in 2005 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent to generate over $1 billion revenue in 2010. That figure represents around one-third of the overall online advertising market, which is expected to grow to over $3.2 billion in 2010.

(China Daily 04/16/2007 page7)