A conversation with Bproperty

Bproperty is an online real estate marketplace in Bangladesh. The company is part of the Emerging Markets Property Group (EMPG), a global, market-leading real estate conglomerate working across 16 different countries. I recently spoke with Zamiul Haq Tuhin, General Manager of Operations at Bproperty, to learn why and how his company uses magicplan.

Tell me a little bit about the company and how you operate.

Sure. Bproperty is a property solution for retail in Bangladesh. It started just six years back. And our core business model is property transactions: we sell properties, we rent properties, we have mortgage solutions, we have interior-design solutions.

Actually, you can say that we provide a one-stop service. You can buy properties through us, we can renovate your properties, we can do all the servicing, we can give you quality management services. We do all these things.

Bproperty.com is our website – our online marketplace. And we have an app as well. So, all the properties we are working with are available on our website and app. Right now, we actually have 67,000 active listings on our website. But those are just the active listings. We have a database with 2.5 million listings, most of which are inactive right now, which are not available.

What happens when a property becomes available?

Whenever a property is up for sale or rent, we just activate that listing on our website.

Do you have more listings for sale, or more for rent?

More for rent, definitely. I'm going to say 70% of our listings are for rent and 30% for sale.

And what is your role as General Manager of Operations?

My role is actually managing all these online listings for our product flow. I take care of the listing contents, which appear on our website and app. So, we are using multiple platforms and continuously changing our content.

How many employees do you have at the moment?

Around 500.

When did you join the company?

I started three years and six months back. And since then, I have seen a lot of transformation and technology changes. The good thing is that we've grown significantly all during that time, and we still are in that growth stage. So, we are growing every month, every year.

When I started here, our portfolio had 16,000 to 18,000 active listings. At this point, we have 67,000 properties to trade – so, almost four times bigger. Also, in the beginning, we were actually dealing with only sale properties. Now, business goes more with the rental segment. So, that transformation took place. Now we are also introducing interior services and mortgage solutions.

How many of those 67,000 properties feature floor plans on your website?

We have five- to six-thousand properties where we have these floor plans. Every day we are getting three- to four-hundred properties for trade, and we actually choose a few specialty properties to include more content.

Our decision on which ones to highlight completely depends on the quality of the properties. So, that's why only five- to six-thousand properties have floor plans, and not all 67,000 properties.

Was magicplan already in use when you joined the company?

Yes, it was introduced just one or two months before I joined. We use it to update our website content. And that is actually adding some value to the page viewers and prospective clients. And it definitely has some impact to generate leads.

Do you know how the company discovered magicplan before you started there?

At that time, the team members were going through options from a few other service providers. And then suddenly they found magicplan. And it seemed like a good fit for the company’s needs, because they wanted to enrich the website.

Do you know why magicplan is the software app that your company decided to use?

Yes, because we have very little dependency on you for assistance. We just have to install the software and get access, then we can use it on our own. There is nothing more to customize and there are no big challenges with it. It is user-friendly. And it makes it easy to map content on our website. So, all of that made it an easy choice to go with magicplan.

How many people at your company are using magicplan?

We have a specific team for that. Right now, six people are using magicplan.

Do you know how long it takes them to create a floor plan for each property?

It actually depends on the size. For 1,600 square feet, it takes 15 to 20 minutes to collect photos and create a floor plan.

What happens after one of them creates a floor plan? Can you guide me through that process?

Yes. Once they create the floor plan, they take it to our office, where we have content editors. The editors export the floor plan from magicplan, edit it and put it in our video content for that property. They also integrate floor plans into our virtual tours, which are more interactive.

You know, during the COVID pandemic, the floor plans and virtual tours helped us significantly in keeping our business active. During those two years, our country was mostly in lockdown. But still, our website content helped us complete transactions.

Do you know how long it took each team member to learn to use magicplan?

Yes, training is not taking too much time – maybe two days. Because the first day, they learn how to use magicplan. Then the next day they are out in the field, collecting floor plans of properties with a senior team member who is a trainer. And the third day, they are on their own. So it's not taking that much time, actually.

Were there any kinds of pain points or frustrations that led your company to implement magicplan?

We did not have any frustrations, to be honest. The thing is, we just wanted to digitize floor plans and tours so that people can visit Bproperty and view properties online whenever they want, instead of actually visiting properties. This is helpful to them. Then once they choose a property and they are ready to make a final decision, they will tour the property in person.

Does your interior services team also use magicplan?

Yes, we are also using magicplan for interior designs.

Do you plan to do anything else with magicplan in the future?

We know 3D floor plans can be created from that platform as well. So, actually, we need to customize our site to add those 3D plans.

If you had to describe magicplan briefly, what would you say?

It's a good help for us.

Thank you so much, Zamiul at Bproperty!

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