When 26-year-old Mani Sharma moved from Jaipur to Gurgaon last month to take up a job as an analyst with CarDekho, her biggest worry was how to find a decent place that she could afford.
It turned out to be far easier than she had imagined.She went online, and quickly found a new concept that’s fast catching up in metros and coaching hubs like Kota: `co-living’.
“I received a mail from the service provider, with my check-in date and details of the coordinator, who picked me up from the station. I was pleasantly surprised to see the accommodation… clean, well-lit and furnished,” says Sharma, who is currently living at a Fella Homes pro perty in Sector 45, Gurgaon.
A bunch of start-ups -in Gurgaon and Bengaluru -is growing a market for organised rentals. They take over properties, furnish them and then rent them out to people.You can take one room, or share it with someone -the choice is yours.
When you move in, you won’t have to worry about WiFi, or buy a TV , a fridge or a microwave. You basically move into a ready place, and there are options tailormade for different budgets, with rents starting at Rs 8,000 a month and going up to Rs 30,000. At present, there are four startups that focus on co-living operating out of Gurgaon, and two based out of Bengaluru. The four Gurgaon start-ups - Fella Homes, CoHo Stayz, Wudstay and Ziffy Homes have between them 575 properties of varying sizes from 20 rooms, to three in NCR. The two Bengaluru players are NestAway and Square Plums.
Considering the large number of young people moving to Gurgaon for work, these players say they are eyeing massive growth in the coming days. “Co-living, as a concept, is gaining popularity across the globe.Some of the accomplished international players in the space are WeLive (US), Common (US) and You+ (China).In India, it is a $10-billionplus market,” says CoHo Stayz Founder Uday Lakkar.
Taking inspiration from US-based WeLive, CoHo focuses on community living and builds, what Lakkar calls, “social experiences for its customers“. The properties are divided into three types -villas, dorms and apartments. While villas and flats are developed keeping working professionals in mind, dorms are meant mostly for students.
More than anything else, it’s the convenience of a maintenance service and a prompt grievance redress system that youngsters find most enticing. “The best part is I don’t have to worry about a broken switch or my cooking gas running out.I just use my app to raise a request and it is attended to within hours,” says Smriti Anand, who lives in a CoHo Stayz property .
ZiffyHomes, too, takes up properties from owners or developers, furnishes and manages them for a commission. “We take a property , develop it and then manage it for the owner. The commission would be 30-35% for the unfurnished property and 10% for a furnished one,” says Sanchal, Co-Founder, ZiffyHomes.
Wudstay works on a different model. It owns the properties it rents out. “The initial investment may be a little high, but we are building assets. And we cover the cost soon enough,” says Praful Mathur, Founder and CEO of Wudstay . To push their ventures, Wudstay had raised $3 million in August last year from Mangrove Capital, while Fella Homes raised $2 million in July this year.
ZiffyHomes raised an undisclosed amount from real estate investors in August.CoHo Stayz is backed by a group of entrepreneurs and investors and is looking for its Series A funding.NestAway , on the other hand, enjoys the backing of Ratan Tata.
Source: The Times of India
