Real estate sites helping people find compatible roomates

A new start-up Grabhouse takes a compatibility test before giving users related info on the available rooms for rent

Move over matrimony sites, even real estate sites are now matchmaking. In a first of its kind, a new start-up real estate site Grabhouse is helping people find compatible roomates while renting accommodation. There is a compatibility test mainly on likes and dislikes - vegetarian/non vegetarian,smoker/non-smoker, late night parties, on the site before users are given related info on the available rooms for rent.

Currently, the service is available in ten cities including Delhi NCR, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore amongst others, Grabhouse co-founder Prateek Shukla told Business Standard.

Offlate, number of start-ups in realty space has come up with new ideas. For instance,Housing.com started the concept of virtual tour of flat/apartment last year,which is now being followed by many realty sites. The other new site commonfloor.com started apartment management services.

An expert tracking the sector say one can find roommates already on sites such as Quicker, Justdial and Sulekha but these sites are based on marketplace wherein listings related to all segments are done, while Grabhouse is only for real estate information- rooms, apartments, Paying guests and hostels.

Shukla, who is a passout from IIT, Kanpur started this venture in July, 2013 only in Mumbai and later expanded to other cities. He also plans to take the site to all tierII cities in India by the end of this year.

Grabhouse would soon start offering legal agreement services to tenants/owners and make hostel registration process online. It has received an undisclosed amount of funding in two rounds and will raise another Rs 100 million in next few months.

The online space in realty medium is picking up fast with as many as eight million people search for real estate information online in India, according to Google. The volume of real estate-related queries is growing at the rate of 35% year-on-year, out of which about half the queries are made with intent of a purchase.

Notably, 30% of these searches come from mobile phones. While 18% of the queries are for rent, 8% each for real estate builders and brokers, the information says.

Currently, most of the realty portals for being used for renting out properties as there is a direct connect between the owner and the consumer without any middlemen.