Is a new Hemnet in town up in the north? MTV Oy (MTV Ltd), the largest commercial broadcasting company in Finland, has combined forces with leading real estate players in the country to establish a new company specializing in online housing services. Jokakoti Oy started operations on 1 April 2011 with the real estate portal Jokakoti.fi.

The transfer of the real estate portal business included the brand Jokakoti and the technology required for portal operations. Existing customer contracts were also transferred as such to the new company, along with four employees from MTV Oy.

Heikki Rotko, the Executive Vice President of MhTV Oy, explains in a statement: “The Jokakoti.fi portal is embarking on a new phase. People at MTV Oy are excited about the cooperation possibilities that will go on to benefit both the consumers who are buying or selling houses and the advertisers”.

And the team behind Jokakoti is impressing: five owner-companies from the broker sector, all members of the Central Federation of Finnish Real Estate Agencies Kiinteistönvälitysalan Keskusliitto (KVKL). Together, they represent about 3,300 individual real estate agents. The sixth owner is MTV Media (MTV3 in Finland), a Finnish commercial television station owned by Swedish publisher Bonnier.

We talked to Jukka Malila, CEO of The Central Federation of Finnish Real Estate Agencies KVKL.

“In the spring of 2010, Finnish brokers expressed their willingness to found a common online marketplace. The cooperation proposal of MTV Oy and the Jokakoti.fi portal were deemed the most suitable. There are many international examples of this type of project, with well-functioning applications,” he says.

In Sweden, the agents have dominated the online property market for years now with Hemnet, one of the country’s biggest web sites with 4.7 million unique visitors a week. Hemnet is an exclusive channel for the agents and nearly all properties for sale by an agent are to be found on the site, which makes any other online advertisement unnecessary. Will Jokakoti.fi create something similar in Finland?

The Swedish real estate agents pay only a smaller yearly fee to advertise their objects on Hemnet. Instead the site makes money with ads. In Finland too, Jokakoti.fi is the only real estate online service that offers completely free listings to real estate agents.

“At the moment, I have noticed that most of the agents have continued to advertise also on other property portals. Each of the owners makes their own decisions independently about where to advertise in the future. Therefore I cannot predict the future, but I look forward positively”, says Jukka Malila.

Hemnet has definitely been an interesting case study for the fins. The search function looks much like it did at Hemnet prior to the recent relaunch of the Web site.

“We have studied the prevailing, successful alternatives very carefully and after that we decided on the model that would be most suitable in Finland and in an optimal taking also he prevailing local situation and evolution history in consideration. So, Swedish Hemnet was one of the most interesting portals for us to study. Furtermore, the Swedish real Swedish Real Estate Association, Mäklarsamfundet, has been a good partner of ours for a long time now. We know that the role of Hemnet in Sweden is quite strong. Of course we are curious to know if similar results could be achieved in Finland too”, Malila adds.

Currently, Alma Media’s property site Etuovi.com is the market leader in Finland with 350,000 weekly visitors followed by Oikotie.fi belonging to the next big publisher Sanoma and with 400,000 weekly visitors (however with the three categories housing, car and job put together).

Raimo Mäkilä, head of the business area marketplaces at Alma Media comments to AIM Group on the new property site:

“I expect Jokakoti.fi to be a strong player in the market, too. But I also expect that there will be several portals for the property market also in the future and each player will have a uniqe value proposition for their customers.”

Sanoma recently made a strategic move to build Oikotie’s local brand presence by consolidating the collaboration between Sanoma News Oy, TS Group, Kaleva Oy and Mediahouse ESA Group with regard to market place business operations. Sanoma News is selling 10 per cent ownership of Oikotie Oy to TS Group, and 8 per cent and 7 per cent ownership to Kaleva and Mediahouse ESA Group, respectively.

Riikka Kouhi. Senior Business Manager at Sanoma Digital Finland, told us that the collaboration between Sanoma News Oy, TS Group, Kaleva Oy and Mediahouse ESA Group) had been planned for a long time. When it comes to the new property site Sanoma intends to keep an eye on it.

“Of course I think Jokakotie will have an effect on the market”, she says. “We watch the developments carefully, but I do think that there will remain a need for commercial sites too. We have a very good relationship with the real estate agents and intend to keep offering them great services. In Sweden Hemnet had a head start as one of the first property sites in the country. Jokakotie on the contrary re-enters a market with established players. That is a significant difference”.

At the time of the transfer, Jokakotie was projected to host approximately 39,000 active real estate listings.