Housing.com posts FY16 loss of over Rs400 crore

New Delhi: Online real-estate company, Housing.com (Locon Solutions Pvt Ltd), now owned by PropTiger, posted losses that soared 45% to over Rs400 crore in the year ended 31 March 2016, financial documents sourced from Tofler showed.

The company registered an 111% increase in revenue to Rs26.76 crore, while total expenditure rose to Rs430 crore, a jump of 48% during financial year 2015-16.

Softbank-backed Housing.com was acquired by News Corp-backed PropTiger in January 2017 in an all-stock deal and was reported to receive $50 million in fresh funds from News Corp.’s REA Group Ltd and $5 million from SoftBank Group.

Most of Housing.com’s original 12 founders left during fiscal 2015-16 when its chief executive and co-founder Rahul Yadav was fired by company directors in July 2015. As a result, the company saw many CXO level entries and appointments, reflecting in its total employee benefit expense which increased by 120% to Rs188.5 crore.

In November 2015, the company appointed Jason Kothari as chief executive. After Housing.com’s acquisition, Kothari joined e-commerce company Snapdeal in January as its chief strategy and investment officer.

Founded in 2012, Housing.com has undergone changes in terms of both its business model as well its top-level management in the past year. The company moved away from being a property listing portal to a property buying and selling portal in November 2015.

During Kothari’s leadership, Housing had shut its rental business. In January 2016, Housing.com moved to a new model—earning advertising revenue from property listers that pay for greater visibility of their properties.

In December 2016, Housing announced that it had relaunched rentals. “Last year (in 2015) Housing.com had taken a strategic decision to close rentals in order to focus the company on the home buying and selling segment... Housing.com has now started preparing for the re-entry and plans to launch home rentals early next year,” Housing had said in a statement in December 2016.

In May, Mint reported that Housing.com is looking to touch $10 million in revenue in the current financial year.

Housing.com had not replied to Mint’s queries.