Press Release.
Houza, a property platform based in Dubai, raised $5.5M in a Pre-Series A round from the leading real estate agencies in the UAE. By lowering listing fees for agencies and hosting only a limited group of thoroughly vetted agencies, houza.com, co-founded in 2020 by CEO Barry Judge, is on a mission to disrupt the tenets of the UAE real estate business.
The “by the industry, for the industry” business strategy of houza enables the online portal to have a thorough understanding of the problems associated with real estate transactions. The startup assigns rankings to postings based on performance and useful content. The portal’s monetization model bills agencies per lead delivered rather than the traditional “cost per listing” used by the industry. On the houza web platform, listings are ranked according to the quality of the material rather than by paying to be at the top.
As the Pre-Series A round of funding for the startup came to a close, Jean-Pierre Mondalek was also announced as the new CEO. Mondalek talked about his outlook for the startup’s future. “I will work closely with our seasoned team and agency partners on ensuring we delight property seekers and real estate agents alike by being focused on building high quality and exclusive-to-houza content and driving leads, respectively.”
Houza plans to increase its staff and keep growing its market share in the UAE. The startup will boost their efforts to address recurring issues with fraudulent and duplicate listings while also collaborating with real estate agents to introduce a variety of “first-to-market” properties on its platform.
Co-Founder Barry Judge offered his thoughts on the investment: “houza has made some fantastic progress over the past 18 months and our 2022 fundraise will allow us to really drive home our value propositions around ‘no-fake-listings’ and ‘first-to-market’ properties.”