Date: 13 Oct 2008

VIRTUALHOMES – THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE CONDOMINIUM SEARCH ENGINE IN SINGAPORE

Home seekers will now be able to ‘tour’ and find out everything they need to know about the condominium developments of their choice online. An unparalleled initiative and first of its kind in Singapore, KF property Network Pte Ltd (KFPN), a subsidiary of Knight Frank, expects the condominium search engine to be a big hit among property investors, sellers, landlords and anyone interested in private residential developments in any district.

With more than 2500 developments available online, noteworthy features of this search engine includes the analytics of given locations and summary information of important amenities such as schools, transportation and shopping mall. Users are also able to ‘walk through’ the developments and their surrounding neighbourhood via a 720 degree paranomic view. All these are value-added enhancements beyond the basic information such as tenure, number of units, available bedroom types and typical floor plans which contribute to the ‘identity’ and ‘aura’ of each development.

“We have consolidated all the essentials that matter to home buyers and investors into each development featured,” said Dr. Tan Tee Khoon, Director (KFPN). “Harnessing the power of the internet, people can now find out all the property information they need before engaging a realty adviser, 24/7 and they can view it from anywhere in the world that has a broadband connection!” Dr Tan continues.

The company’s exclusive technology partners include Shownearby Pte Ltd that offers up-to-date land information system and SingaporeVR.com, which provides the virtual tour technology. It is also in a tie-up with ST701 to enhance web presence.

The seed for virtualhomes has its infancy in the Workplace Redesign Plans for which its parent company was given a grant from WDA in 2005. Part of the workplace re-engineering that was mooted involved the transformation of the Associates Division in Knight Frank to the present KFPN, a subsidiary company. Knight Frank’s Managing Director Tan Tiong Cheng exclaims, “We believe in reinventing ourselves to flow with the times! Singapore is clearly poised to be a “connected nation”. This initiative will improve our reach to prospective clients who make informed decisions about property investments”.

“We want to capitalize on our extensive knowledge about the real estate market, and bring this to a greater height via what the best IT can offer, enabling our realtors to serve their clients better.”, said Dr. Tan.

The public can log on to http://www.virtualhomes.sg/ and enjoy the power of consumer sovereignty in making real estate investment decisions.