South Africa’s biggest on-line residential letting portal has been launched by Trafalgar Home Letting, the rental arm of the Trafalgar Group.

Prospective tenants will be able to choose from a sophisticated data base of over 2400 vacant properties to let across South Africa, over the Internet.

Located on www.trafalgar.co.za, the home rental search engine will provide those looking for a flat with convenient, real time and cost effective access to national residential letting vacancies, comments Trafalgar Managing Director, Andrew Schaefer. He says that this new service is a demonstration of Trafalgar’s focus to lead the market through service innovation and by maximizing the benefits of technology.

Trafalfar aims to make the majority of its residential and property management services available online to ensure that clients have immediate and direct access to relevant and value-added information.

The search engine for residential letting vacancies is the latest addition to an existing suite of services currently available online from Trafalgar. These include online levy and rental statements and the Marketplace Online, which makes a whole array of building information available on the Internet including a hotline for property management advice, financial reports, unit sales information and AGM and Trustee minutes.

"We have exciting plans underway to launch South Africa’s first property management portal with a trustee training material, a property management information system and other useful applications accessible on the Internet," comments Schaefer.

He believes that given the penetration of the Internet in South Africa, online searches are unlikely to become the primary channel for searching residential vacancies in the short term. "However, given the convenience, low cost and speed of the Internet, we do expect that a growing and material segment of the market looking for a home to rent will try this channel and continue using the Internet because of its compelling advantages."

Schaefer says that currently only landlords who have signed a mandate with Trafalgar will have their properties listed for free on the Internet search engine. However, Trafalgar is investigating broader access to their Internet advertising channel as part of Phase 2 of its development.

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Issued by: Kerry Osborne, Marshall Inc, 193b Lambert Road, Morningside, Durban,

Tel No: (031) 303 9723, Fax No: (031) 312 9497, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.