SHANGHAI, Nov. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- E-House (China) Holdings Limited ("E-House" or the "Company") (NYSE: EJ), a leading real estate services company in China, today announced that it is launching version 4.0 of its Leju real estate e-commerce platform designed to enable the integration of real estate e-commerce with financial services. As part of the new platform, E-House expects to form a strategic cooperation with CITIC Bank Corporation Limited ("CITIC"), pursuant to which CITIC and the Company will jointly introduce Leju Loan, an innovative financial product that aims to provide added liquidity and improve the overall purchasing power of home buyers. Qualified home buyers who purchase real estate through the Leju real estate e-commerce platform can obtain a line of credit from CITIC by pledging their existing properties as collateral. The line of credit can be used to satisfy a variety of consumption needs such as home improvement, vehicle purchases and vacations. The Company expects to have a formal signing ceremony for the cooperation in the near future.
Mr. Xin Zhou, co-chairman and CEO of E-House said, "As a leader in the real estate services industry, E-House is committed to continuous innovation. In the past three years, we have made significant progress in developing Leju's real estate e-commerce business, from the event-driven version 1.0, linking a developer's advertising spending with sales performance, to version 2.0, establishing our online-to-offline process to expand distribution channels for real estate projects, and to version 3.0, separating the use of our e-commerce platform from value-added services and empowering developers to formulate their own marketing strategy. We believe our real estate e-commerce platform has been well received by home buyers as well as developers nationwide, delivering impressive growth and demonstrating strong vitality."
Mr. Zhou continued, "As the real estate e-commerce sector continues to evolve, integrating financial services with e-commerce has become a major need in the market. Version 4.0 of Leju's e-commerce platform effectively combines these two core components, helping to provide an additional source of financing for consumers, while increasing sales conversion rates and achieving better sales for developers. We believe version 4.0 represents another breakthrough in real estate marketing in China and will elevate the fledgling real estate e-commerce sector to a new level."
