A broker in Nagpur takes a portal package before the festive season. Enquiries come in steadily for three months. Then the package ends, the renewal gets delayed, and the phone goes quiet almost overnight.
Nothing went wrong there. That is simply what renting looks like. Most businesses rent something: a shop, a hoarding, a slot in the newspaper. The question is not whether to rent visibility, but whether you also own any.
What a portal actually sells you
Portals like 99acres, MagicBricks and Housing.com have spent years building an audience of people who are actively looking for property. That audience is real, and putting your listings in front of it is a sensible thing to pay for.
But be clear about what you are buying. You are buying a place on someone else's page, for as long as the package lasts. The layout, the order of results and the rules are theirs to set. Your listing usually sits beside other agents' listings for the same locality, and a buyer scrolling through will often contact several of you about the same kind of flat.
When you stop paying, your place on that page goes. Nothing you built there comes with you.
What only your own website can do
Your own website is a different kind of asset. It is slower to start, and it is yours.
- It shows only your listings, with no competitor one scroll away.
- Every enquiry comes straight to you.
- Your name, phone number and RERA registration are there for a buyer to check.
- Pages you publish can keep being found on Google long after you wrote them.
- It gives you one link for WhatsApp, visiting cards and hoardings.
- AI assistants like ChatGPT can read it when someone asks them who to call.
That last point is newer than most people realise. Some buyers now type a whole question into an assistant instead of scrolling a portal, and the assistant answers from websites it can read. We explain what makes a site readable to them on our page about how sites get found.
The honest downside
A new website does not arrive with an audience. On day one, nobody knows it exists. Showing up on Google for your own business name usually comes first. Showing up for a busy search like "2 BHK in Dharampeth" is a much longer job, measured in months, and it depends on you publishing useful pages along the way. We have written separately about how long ranking really takes.
A website also needs looking after. A site full of flats that sold last year is worse than no site at all, because it makes you look careless.
So a website is not a switch that replaces portals overnight. It is something you build up.
Rent and own: give each a different job
Most small property businesses should do both, and give each one a clear job.
Use portals to reach new buyers quickly, for specific listings, especially in busy seasons. Use your website as the permanent home of your business: the place where your full stock lives, where your reputation builds up, and where anyone who hears your name can check you out.
Those two jobs connect. A buyer who finds you on a portal will often search your business name before they call. If what they find is a proper website with your current listings and a working phone number, you look like an established office. If they find nothing, or an old Facebook page, some of them will call the next agent instead. That is why it makes sense to rank for your own name first.
Over time, as your website starts bringing in enquiries of its own, you can look at your portal spend with clearer eyes. Some packages will still earn their place. Some will not. The only way to know is to count, and to count the true cost rather than just the invoice. We have gone through that in why portal leads cost more than the invoice says.
What to do this week
You do not need to make a big decision today. You need a few facts.
- Add up what you spent on portals over the last twelve months.
- Count how many closed deals, not enquiries, came from them.
- Search your business name on Google from your phone and note what appears.
- Ask your last five clients how they first heard of you.
- If you have no website yet, list the ten listings and the one page about your firm that would go on it first.
With those numbers in front of you, the rent-or-own question stops being a matter of opinion. You will see how much of your business depends on a package renewing, and how much of it you would like to own.
