With Russians now the second biggest Internet users in Europe, online property sales have also increased significantly.
According to a report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Russia accounts for 2.8 percent (59,700,000) of the world’s Internet users as of June 2012.
Meanwhile, 77 percent of Russian respondents in a poll conducted by overseas property portal 1-property.ru said going online was their first choice when it came to finding property investments.
Of this figure, 53 percent spent more than 27 minutes searching for a property while 37 percent invested more than €500,000 (S$786,881). The survey also showed that Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey were the top three most popular investment destinations.
Kim Waddoup, CEO of aiGroup, owner of 1-property.ru, said: “Germany already has an 83 percent penetration, but the real growth potential is here across Russia, with 79 million still to receive Internet access.”
“We have made extensive investments since our launch in 2004 which have resulted in high optimization in the Russian language search engines, with more than 5,000 targeted visitors per day coming to our site.”
Waddoup noted that in the US, 63 percent of buyers had walked through a property they viewed online. But in a country as vast as Russia, this isn’t so easy. As a result, the Internet is an efficient tool for buyers and sellers to come together.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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