NoBroker.com disrupts brokerage driven property market

NoBroker.com, founded by IIT – IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Amit Kumar & Akhil Gupta, has enabled customers to buy the house of their choice without paying any brokerage. It is a broker-free property search portal that connects customers directly with each other by eliminating the middleman. With 3.5 lakh customers, it claims to be the world’s largest P2P rental marketplace.

Amit Agarwal, CEO, NoBroker.com believes that there is a huge market waiting to be explored as brokerage is a key concern area for both property owners as well as those looking for one. He says, “There is definitely a huge market in India. The total asset of Indian houses is over 5000 billion dollars. The transaction number is big as when we are renting an apartment, the contract needs to be renewed after every 11 months. What is happening is over one billion dollar is paid as brokerage by common men in top 30 cities in rentals. In resale, 2.5 billion dollar is paid as brokerage. The broker facilitates the transfer of information and technology is going to change that. The other players are mainly working with brokers and we are only one working without them.”

As to why the other digital property platforms did not go this way, he states, “Traditionally, it was a broker driven industry. With advance of internet, these platforms started acting as advertisement channel for brokers online and get hold of buyers and sellers and then take it offline. After that new players have come and improved discovery. Now, we are saying that this will be offered and also it will be brokerage free.”

The portal claims to be already helping customers save more than Rs 15 crores of brokerage every month across four cities only through broker free rentals. Now with the launch of buy/sell, the savings for customers will sky rocket. With NoBroker’s enhanced platform and improved interface, customers will be able to contact owners directly.

To mitigate risks from buyer’s perspective, it has got into partnership with agencies having dedicated professionals who will issue certificate after hard core research which will say that the house is free from legal problems. They also have Encumbrance certificate which comes into picture once a buyer is close to finalizing the property. Agarwal states, “You need to check that house is free from baggage of any legal problem and we have agencies who are expert at this at nominal cost. Moreover, if owner has taken a loan and if we are sharing this information that house is approved by bank, it will instil more trust in minds of buyers.”

NoBrorker.com also assists the buyers in getting a home loan.

Its journey, however, has not been without hiccups. Agarwal divulges, “Last month the NoBroker office in Bangalore was attacked by brokers trying to take forced entry. Also, office premises were damaged in all this chaos battering employees and disrupting work. We have been working from a make-shift office and our homes for over two weeks now. Amidst all this, we launched brokerage free buy/sell in timelines as planned before the attack because we are committed to the cause of addressing the information asymmetry in the real estate sector.” The portal, however, plans to continue the disruption via technology and help its customers save brokerage.

NoBroker.com was angel funded by Saurabh Garg (co-founder of Four Fountains De-stress Spa) who also acts as a mentor. Early this year it had raised Series-A funding of $ 3 million from SAIF Partners and Fulcrum Ventures.