Magicbricks.com, the real estate portal, operated by the Times of India Group, claims to be the largest real estate portal in the country. Owing to the conglomerate’s huge pool of resources and support from its media wing, Magicbricks’ offline promotion and ad campaigns have succeeded in making it a household name.
However, there have been several complaints from end-users that the portal has not been able to keep up to its claims of being the best real estate classified portal of the country. Based on the various feedback posted by users on the internet and also from what several friends who used the portal had to say, I can safely assume that:
(1) When it comes to renting out your property or when you are looking for a rented accommodation, Magicbricks is better than 99acres.com, another portal run by the Naukri.com Group.
(2) Magicbricks have a good presence in a handful of metros. Property listings of other cities are very limited.
(3) It is a pro-broker portal. Most properties on the Magicbricks.com website are posted by brokers. Direct postings from owners and developers are less.
(4) Almost all the properties are put up by brokers who ask for ridiculously high commission.
(5) Many end users say that if you post a requirement, you are flooded with calls from brokers only. Calls from end buyers and property owners are almost not existent.
(6) Many buyers allege that the site is full of scammers who take a deposit to show properties. But once you pay them, they never return their calls. Most of them work on the mobile phone and have no office of their own.
(7) Many users have also found difficulty in posting their property listing. Although it says “Post Property FREE” the process sometimes doesn’t work and when you speak to a representative in Magicbricks, they try to convert the user into a paid member.