Sri Lanka’s Leading Property Websites Witness a Rise in Property Searches During COVID-19 Period

With the COVID-19 lockdown being eased by the government and normalcy gradually returning, Sri Lanka’s leading property portal LankaPropertyWeb.com has announced a rise in the number of website searches it receives.

According to the recent analysis of LankaPropertyWeb.com, throughout the entire period of May, the website obtained a record-breaking increase in organic traffic and a surge in traffic from countries beyond Sri Lanka. This includes Italy, Spain, Belgium, New Zealand and France. 

Organic traffic is the traffic received from search engines such as Google, as a result of people searching on them—in this case for properties to buy or rent. 

The searches on the search engines revealed that many are on the constant lookout for houses for sale and rent in the metropolitan city and its suburbs even during this time. This is evidence that although people may not be able to visit in person, the need for housing still exists.  

The daily traffic record of the website—also directed to Idealhome—had surpassed by 116% more than the peak traffic it received before the spread of COVID-19. While House.lk, Sri Lanka’s Number 2 Property Website, reported that their visits increased twice as more during the same period.  

Commenting on this traffic increase, Managing Director of LankaPropertyWeb, Daham Gunaratna said, “Usually the peak traffic for property searches comes in January and February with April and May being low traffic months. However with the lockdown gradually easing, we’ve seen a remarkable uplift of organic traffic to the website from people searching for property online. Even after the curfew was lifted in Colombo, the traffic continues to increase into the month of June. Another interesting point is that visits from overseas, especially from European countries have increased during this period. This shows that both locals and expats are active in the market and looking to buy properties”.

The comparison between the website visits in the first week of the curfew and the week commencing 18th of May show an increase of 124%. The site also reported a significant increase in leads generated (i.e. inquiries for ads), up to 228% more, between the start of the curfew and the 3rd week of May. Property ads posted on the website showed an increment of 170% during the same period as well.  

“The rise in traffic is further proof that the real estate market is quite active now and this would be a good time for buyers to find good property bargains in the market before they are snapped up by savvy property hunters” added Gunaratna.