Has Housing.co.in cracked the rentals space?

If buying grocery and electronic items can be a click away why should you go door-to-door to inspect flats with a broker?

By changing the fundamental process of home search through a location-based platform that scouts accommodations, housing.co.in-an online housing portal founded in 2012 and currently serving only in Mumbai- backed by the likes of former Network 18 CEO Haresh Chawla (currently a partner at PE firm India Value Fund) and Zishaan Hayath, who’s the co-founder of Future Bazaar, has taken the innovative lead of bringing houses to users instead.

Currently, the site offers a map view of all the listed properties in Mumbai. (See image above). On each individual flat listing page, the portal offers information on the facilities available in that property, along with its location on the map, and photos of the flat. Additional filtering can be done on the basis of price, number of rooms, furnishings etc.

More from Economy

Inflation likely to be a big focus area for budget 2024, say sources Explained: Will the Bank of Japan break tradition and raise interest rates?

By visiting every flat on their website, an internal data-collecting team geo-codes the flats which enables them to provide additional information like neighbourhood and commuting details (parks, train station, bus stops, clubs, eating joints etc) unlike other portals.

For example, if you are searching for a 2BHK flat with rent below Rs 45,000, you can click on the tabs on top to filter your requirements. Once you click on one property, a picture and details of the flat will pop up. If you like what to you see, you can leave your phone number and e-mail id in the column available and the broker/landlord will contact you.

And if if you’re looking for flats without brokers in Mumbai, you need not just rely on the Facebook group. Housing.co.in also lists a large number of flats directly held by owners. By selecting the ‘Owner’ checkbox in ‘Listings from’ filter on the right hand side of the page, you are good to go and can avoid paying brokerage too.

[caption id=“attachment_665432” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Housing.Co.in[/caption]

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Housing.co.in co-founder Advitiya Sharma, an IIT-Bombay graduate who holds a BTech and an MTech in Aerospace Engineering, spoke about how an in-house data collection team makes all the difference to beat competition from bigger real estate portals that serve like a telephone directory rather than enabling users to find their ideal homes.

How did it all begin? What motivated you to launch a rental website? Were you confident of the project? How did you convince investors?

“We wanted something better, so we built it.” We wanted to build a product which we would love to use ourselves and solved an actual problem. Real estate is a broken space, plagued with lack of information which has made the home-search experience not only time consuming but also stressful. Our belief in this purpose is unshakeable and our will is over-whelming and we are confident that we will win.

Investors are expecting real estate search websites to grow rapidly in the next few years. What is housing.co.in doing to attract such investment? Are you looking to offer ancillary services to help create demand online?

[caption id=“attachment_665002” align=“alignright” width=“224”] Advitiya Sharma, the co-founder of Housing.co.[/caption]

Housing.co.in has been founded by a group from IIT-Bombay, who are really focused on building a great team which executes at a fast pace. We are big on data and technology and believe it is authentic data that separates a good real estate from a bad one. Our focus is simple, provide users authentic and accurate information with great visualization to help them make the most apt choice. It is this approach which has led us to build the product and business and attract users.

What is unique about Housing.co.in when compared with international products in the same category? In other words, what is the single biggest USP which will allow you to sustain and grow going forward?

The data we collect, enables us to come up with features that add immense value for our users in their home-search process. Having provided numerous photographs for each flat, we go a step ahead. Special filters on the website enable users to locate their dream house near places highly suited to them - be it their favorite coffee-joint, mall, night club or more importantly their office or their kid’s school.

For people specifically interested in added features, we provide a list to choose from - a gym, a swimming pool, a gas pipeline, and so on - thus making Housing.co.in the perfect real estate search guide one can employ.

Given the number of property websites in India, how do you plan on beating the competition considering this only lists rental properties and does not list properties for purchase?

We are primarily focusing on rentals, but have received a plethora of requests from consumers and brokers, so we decided to launch our new “Buy & Sell” section. We are keen on enabling users to find homes which suit their requirements best.

The list of properties to choose from is very small. For example for a budget of around 40,000, I barely get any listings for places in Bandra/Khar. Do you plan on rectifying that?

We keep on adding fresh and real homes everyday through our in-house data collection team. We also remove homes which are no longer available. This ensures 100% accurate listings for our users and we are focused on increasing options available for them.

What is the revenue model? Do buyers/those looking to rent have to pay a fee too?

As far as monetization is concerned, we charge a subscription fee (bi-annual and annual) to brokers which allows them to upload unlimited listings on the website. The data is collected and verified by our in-house data collection and verification teams. Listings for landlords is free for now and we may start charging a nominal amount later, ensuring that owners can upload their flats on the website for free.

We do not charge any amount to our users and are completely focused on making home-search hassle free for them.

What are you expansion plans? Which cities are viable/unviable?

We went about deciding where to launch next in a very different way. We ran a Facebook poll, asking where our users would like to have our services next. We were overwhelmed with the response. Over 50000 people voted and Hyderabad emerged as a clear winner with a whopping 17000 votes. It’s great that our users are telling us where to go next and we’re really loving it.

How do you ensure that the brokers are not frauds and ensure that flat owners do not make false or exaggerated claims?

Authenticity is critical for us. Our in-house data collection team ensures that every single home we showcase, is real and available for our users. Fraudulent listing are the biggest reason why the real estate space is broken and lacks information for users, and we are confident that our approach will solve this problem.

What is your marketing strategy going forward?

We believe that Housing.co.in is a very powerful tool to help people search for homes, which exactly meet their needs. Ever since we started we have received a phenomenal response from our users and all our marketing efforts will be focused on bringing our product to more and more people so that they can benefit from it.

Our take:

The user interface has to get full marks. Every real estate site until now, has been texty with infinite dropdowns and endless filtering. Housing.co.in, unabashedly acknowledges geography as the matrix of any real estate hunt. It’s location stupid. While filtering is present as a top navigation, the drill down within the map has been used beautifully to make a hunt, more informative with every step. The integration into maps is top notch. The discovery with listings on the left hand side is also neatly done.

However, what a map also does is that it makes the paucity of listings equally obvious. The USP of Housing.co.in could also be its greatest challenge. If they want to build trust along with a superior user experience then they must verify. But verification is human beings, and that means scale. Too many of our searches went poorly answered. For the site to build repeat visits they will have to scale up and do it quickly.