Start-up property portal prepares to “transform’ market

PHUKET: A start-up technology company created by the same team that built the LivePhuket real-estate company says it’s ready to ‘transform’ Thailand’s property market with a ‘data-driven’ property portal.

The portal, launched in Phuket on April 24, provides instant and easy access to the largest selection of newly-built condominiums, all on a platform that aims to simplify the process of researching and identifying a property to purchase.

“We are aiming to create a place where buyers, sellers, real-estate professionals, institutions and other industry people can make like for like comparisons on properties across different locations and developments,” explained Mike Kenner, CEO and founder of FazWaz.

“The FazWaz team are also working on the most accurate online valuation system available in Thailand using our secret algorithm developed by a team of data and information technology experts, analyzing millions of data points relating to a huge selection of property characteristics and features.”

As an example of the data points being collected, Mr Kenner listed many standard reference points such as location, size, view and distance to the beach.

“Additionally, other factors such as developer history, environmental impact assessment permit, current stage of completion – will also play a factor in accurately calculating the pricing,” Mr Kenner said.

“Being an independent website, the FazWaz.com team ensure all information inputted into the system is wholly accurate and ensure data and quotation are more accurate than any human will ever be.”

Though the company heralds its independence from LivePhuket – different legal structure, different revenue, different business model and so on – it notes that LivePhuket will be the exclusive agency that
services leads and inquiries generated from FazWaz for Phuket.

“We will have other partner agencies in Pattaya and Samui,” Mr Kenner said.

In practical terms, Fazwaz will allow buyers to also make side-by-side comparisons of newly-built condominiums based on selected criteria.

“The platform will clearly show you which properties are priced ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ than typical averages in same bedroom and location category. Therefore many of the current and future tools on the site will give users an idea about which properties are ‘expensive’ or not,” Mr Kenner said.

Though the current business model for the company is not set up to be incentivized to push individual developers, Mr Kenner reiterated the fact that it was a start-up company and that the model might change.

With less than a month under their belt, the team is already looking to branch out beyond the English-speaking market in Thailand.

“It is currently in English, and will go multi-lingual very soon,” Mr Kenner said. “We see the Chinese market as an obvious one we cannot ignore. We are pretty confident that we can build the best product in Thailand – and this is only our first one – so we have big plans and additions moving forward.”

For more information about data-driven property portal fazwaz, check out the website here.

— Isaac Stone Simonelli