Hyderabad

House-hunt: Tenants shun brokers, rely on websites

Sunny Baski

HYDERABAD: The trend of tenants depending largely on brokers for house-hunting is slowly but steadily changing in the city with majority of them now relying on websites, information provided by relatives and friends or they are themselves stepping out in search of ‘to-let’ boards.

According to NoBroker, a leading online real estate platform, about 35 per cent of tenants are now depending on ‘to-let’ boards, 30 per cent on websites and relatives while just five per cent of them are using brokerage services. The report said that lockdowns made offline modes of home search and rent payment obsolete.

Seizing this opportunity, the real estate platforms upped their game and improvised quickly to offer hassle-free experience to customers with video tours and facilities like cashless rent and maintenance payments, which could be done at the click of a button on the application or website.

The first wave of pandemic saw reverse migration in huge numbers. Over 50 per cent of landlords even reduced the rent. Many tenants vacated as they had the option of working from their hometowns. In order to attract tenants, many landlords resorted to services such as home-cleaning and painting as many of them were solely dependent on rental income.

Broker services have been on the decline in the last five years as per NoBroker survey. The cities like Chennai and Hyderabad seem to have completely done away with them.Bengaluru, Chennai, and Delhi NCR have seen a maximum number of tenants using real estate websites to find a house.

A majority of tenants cite the option of brokerage-free properties as the main reason for choosing a real estate website and the other reasons being more inventory and convenience. Facilities in a locality, distance from places of frequent travel and safety came across as the major reasons for choosing a locality by most tenants. Other criteria that made it to the list were getting a bigger house at a lower price in a different locality, water supply, and proximity to public transport.

Traditional ways now obsolete
According to NoBroker, a leading online real estate platfor, about 35% of tenants are now depending on ‘to-let’ boards, while 30% rely on websites and relatives while just five per cent of them are using brokerage services. It added that the lockdown made offline modes of home search obsolete

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