Foreign investors add Indian online property portals to shopping cart

New Delhi

INDIAN businessman Navin Bhartia's Internet habits make him a dream customer for billionaire foreign media moguls like Rupert Murdoch. The 45-year-old from Kolkata likes to buy homes online, sometimes without visiting them. In the last four years, he has bought five properties for 40 million rupees (S$859,802) on Proptiger.com, partly owned by Mr Murdoch's News Corp.

Foreign investors like Mr Murdoch have already put more than US$200 million into portals that help people like Mr Bhartia buy homes. Spurring the interest is Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vow to provide a house to every Indian family by 2022 as the country's growing army of Internet users embrace e-commerce.