Ads on tuk tuks, agents and newspapers are still drivers in the Bangladesh and Sri Lanka real estate markets, but with property booming, online sites are vying to increase market share.

Classified Intelligence Report's Tariq Ahmed Saeedi says the boom primarily driven by an improving economy, growing GDP and political stability, is a good omen for online property sites.

In the commercial hub of Colombo, the end of the three-decade-long civil war in Sri Lanka has paved the way for a genuine construction uptick.

Leader LankaPropertyWeb.com, which has a new responsive site with 4.5 million monthly page views (in a country of about 4.2 million internet users) is eyeing expansion of the search radius, with direct links via WhatsApp and Viber.

Mobile phones are also an essential component in the growth strategies of internet ventures in Bangladesh, where Lamudi Bangladesh managing director Rajesh Grover says the "steady shift" to online is most notable real estate: "Seventy per cent of web traffic now originates from mobile phones," he says.

Saeedi says Bangladesh's 46 million internet users do not have many options for online property searches, leaving the field "virtually open" for newcomers. He quotes entrepreneur Imran Ali Khan of zameen.com, who believes "a gap is there to be filled".

"There are ten to 15 start-ups with each holding 10,000 or so listings, and for such a huge population, they are not sufficient," Khan says.

Grover says communicating to agents that advertising online is more cost-efficient than traditional marketing methods is an issue.

Primary obstacles in both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are strict regulations for foreign investment in real estate and prohibitive property taxes, Saeedi says: "Amendments to these would truly take the online property market to the next level."

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