The Egyptian portal was created for property sales in Cairo and Alexandria. According to Propertyfinder, it was decided to launch in Egypt, because of the population size (largest country population in the Arab world) of more than 83 million, and the fact that Egypt’s real estate sector is growing rapidly (construction activity rose 60 percent from end-2011 to end-2012).

Already Propertyfinder.eg has thousands of listings from Egyptian real estate agents, helping buyers and renters in Egypt to find their optimal properties easily and quickly. The services offered on the portal include listings of apartments, villas, offices and commercial properties that are for sale or to rent. Propertyfinder.eg also publishes local real estate news and offers useful advice and guides on buying, selling and renting property in Egypt.

Read more on the Facebook page of Propertyfinder.ae (here). And about the Egyptian project (here).

AlBabWorld.com became Propertyfinder.ae in 2007, when Rupert Murdoch’s real estate portal network REA Group acquired a 51 percent majority stake in AlBabWorld.com for $1 million U.S. and changed the name to Propertyfinder.ae (more here).

The real estate vertical offers real estate for sale and rent, including apartments, villas, land and buildings. It covers five countries in the Middle East, namely UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan.

Both private and institutional sellers may list on the vertical, and Souq.com signed agreements with a big number of real estate companies, including Coldwell Banker, Trenta, Nile State and Kishk Real Estate. They have already posted properties on the vertical.

Property.souq.com has an iPhone app, which enable users to search for properties and contact agents or landlords from their mobile phones. In addition, property agents and landlords can use the app to upload photos of their properties, set the prices and locations and post their ads.

Souq.com, a major e-commerce platform in the Middle East, launched in 2005. On the platform users can buy and sell convenietly, and reliably, with a chargeable e-payment system and delivery services.

The website Oforo (Latin word for “online market”) launched in 2012 to provide UAE internet users with a classified ads platform to search for cars, jobs, real estate, partner search and general classifieds. Oforo.com offers other informative services, such as recipes, movie play-times, weather updates and currency rates.

The website covers all the cities in the UAE, but plans to expand to other countries in the near future.

The tool helps companies satisfy their recruitment needs with a variety of resume filtration, and organization tools. At the time of writing this article, Akhtaboot.com had linked its tool to two company websites.

Job portal Akhtaboot.com was established in 2007 for the Middle-East region. Job seekers create free accounts for uploading their CVs and to apply for jobs using filtration tools.

Also employers can post opportunities and receive relevant applications through user-friendly filtration tools. Akhtaboot has a community-based model that ensures that registered users express an interest in at least one, but not more than three, job function communities.

Currently Akhtaboot is one of  the main  job networks in the Levant (the states bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea, namely Cyprus, Palestina, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria) and in the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates), when it comes to cross-medial offers to advertisers (placing ads in Internet, radio, newspaper and magazine).

In total there are 25 job function communities on Akhtaboot.com. When companies post jobs, they post them onto specific communities. Companies can post jobs in several communities (up to three per job posting credit) and when they receive applications, members of these communities get preferential treatment.

Currently the page contain about 1,543 tweets (or ads). Users who follow Aqarlink on Twitter get messages on Twitter if anything matches what they are looking for. At this early stage Aqarlink.com has 262 followers. Aqarlink.com focuses on using social networks, such as Twitter, to expand its services.

Each ad post, or tweet, is in English and summarized in a 146-character ad, which is the limit allowed by Twitter. Aqarlink.com constantly updates with new tweets. Many websites are doing the same by posting their classified ads on Twitter to exploit the advantages offered by social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, as places to interact with people. Although this is still a novel way to advertise in the Middle East, it is turning into a new trend on classified ad websites in the region.

Aqarlink.com was established in 2008 by Abdalla Mohammad to enable users in Jordan to post real estate ads and search the database of properties available for sale or rent. The website is available in Arabic and English.

Dubizzle used many methods to achieve that, including television commercials and media announcements for the Egyptian version of Dubizzle, which is a comprehensive portal offering ads for real estate, automotive and recruitment.

With this effort the platform wanted to increase its traction in the big Egyptian market of over 85 million people. It might also have been a reaction to the recent arrival of two new competitors. Firstly, Russia-based Avito.com was launched in Arabic to reach internet users in Egypt. Secondly, SCM Venture launched 2olli.com in Arabic.

The new launches confirm the importance of the Egyptian market in the Middle East and North Africa.

The job fair attracted about 70,000 visitors and 13 employers. The aim of the fair was to save time for new employment, so job-seekers could search and apply for jobs discretely from any Internet-accessible computer. The fair had virtual booths for different participating companies, where each company’s business activities and recruitment practices were explained.

Jobseekers could submit their resumes directly to the companies of their choices, or respond to advertised jobs, with opportunities to interact in text-based or video chat sessions. The virtual job fair allowed for cost savings by participating companies of up to 50 percent and helped to maximize the returns on investment of the manpower divisions.

In the last 3 years Bayt.com has arranged more than 10 similar job fairs in different countries, including Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Saudi-Arabia thanks to the successes reaped with the idea. Bayt.com plans to continue arranging these online virtual job fairs in future, and will target Middle East employers and job-seekers.

Bayt.com is a job portal in the Middle East, founded in 2000 and available in English, Arabic and French.