Property listings portal BuyRentKenya.com has been awarded with the East Africa Property Award for Best Internet Marketing Portal for 2014.
The Kenyan startup was presented with the award at a ceremony hosted by the East Africa Property Association (EAPA) at the Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi at the end of last month.
The awards seek to recognise the important role the local industry plays in the success of real estate and infrastructure development.
“There is a great sense of accomplishment to be recognised by the public and our peers as being the best at what we do,” said BuyRentKenya chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Jamie Pujara.
“The property portal space in Kenya has over 20 players including some large international companies. We have always felt as the local player we have intrinsic knowledge of what the agents and developers want as well as fundamental understanding of how the end user in Kenya wants to find property. The award is validation that our focus on localised expertise is valued by the property seekers.”
Pujara said the company planned to build on its accomplishments in the future by continuing to innovate and create more tools to assist property seekers in finding their ideal home and create more transparency and credibility in the market.
BuyRentKenya has had a number of successes recently, securing funding from One Africa Media (OAM) in May this year and hitting the 20,000 listing milestone.
“The OAM deal was great on so many levels. Yes of course the money helped move us forward faster, but more importantly we got to work daily with more passionate people in the online classifieds space not only in Kenya but all over Africa,” Pujara told Disrupt Africa last month.
“The ability to learn and share experiences with Private Property in Nigeria and South Africa for example has been really important for us. We now have a clearer understanding of the fundamentals that apply to all our property sites as well as appreciating what makes each of our countries unique in both the challenges and ingenuity.”
He said the startup was not looking for further investment in the foreseeable future, but hoped to strengthen its services and market position with its current team.
