2006-05-05Staff Report 2 "By Staff Reporter WINDHOEK House hunting has been made easy with the launch of a property web portal 'Property.com.na'. The website allows visitors to find property of their choice to buy, rent or sell at a click of a button. This website is Namibia's first fully interactive online property portal, and currently contains almost 800 available properties across the country, mostly submitted by leading estate agents. Although estate agents have provided 90 percent of the properties, private individuals can also submit free of charge their properties for sale or rent. The website is the result of a collaboration between the Property News magazine, Interact FCB, one of Namibia's leading advertising agencies, and Interact's sister company, Intertech which specialises in e-business, software development and web design and hosting. John McCartney, one of the founding directors of www.property.com.na, who officiated at the launch of the website said since the website was activated on the 17th of April, there has been over 900 visitors to the site, and each visitor has viewed an average of more than 11 different pages of the website. He said almost 20 percent of all visitors spend more than half an hour checking properties and the professional service listings on the site, which is remarkable traffic, especially for a Namibian website. Under the 'Professional Services' section the site provides information on services associated with homes and commercial properties, such as plumbing, landscaping and painting, valuers and lawyers, together with information on financial services such as banks and insurance companies. The site also incorporates a mortgage calculator that helps visitors immediately check what properties they are likely to be able to afford. The launch was attended by representatives from estate agencies, insurance companies, financial institutions and suqHort services. ""It's good to see Namibians showing such keen interest in the online business sector. The positive responses are a good indication that people are ready to embrace this type of web-based business model. It's clear that there is a greater understanding and better adoption culture than a few years ago and this will surely stimulate growth and further development for the web-based business industry as a whole, "" Gareth Amos, Senior Director of Interact FCB, said." 2006-05-05Staff Report 2
