Rental properties witnessing high demand in major metros, says report

Rental properties are seeing high demand in major metros and many of them are getting rented out within six hours of posting advertisements online, according to a realty portal.

The trend also comes amid many companies embracing both work from home as well as office post the coronavirus pandemic, it said in a report.

Nobroker offers rental properties in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune. It claims to have over 1.8 crore registered users.

The portal, which does not charge brokerage, gets over 2.5 lakh rental postings every month, its Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Amit Agarwal told PTI.

Data available with the portal for the April-June period showed that properties are getting rented out within six hours of being listed on the Nobroker platform since April, led by Bengaluru, where the rental occupancy has grown five times from the pre-pandemic level.

In the other five cities, the occupancy growth rate is three times since April, as per the data.

When it comes to Bengaluru, the platform has seen 18,000 new rental properties being rented out in the tech city in less than 24 hours after being listed in April. The number of such deals was 7,000-8,000 for Chennai, 5,000 each for Pune and Hyderabad.

Around 40 per cent of the deals were closed in less than 6 hours after posting of the rental advertisements, Agarwal said.

As many companies still have a work from home policy in select residential markets in Bengaluru, there has been a massive demand for apartments in gated communities, the report said.

Agarwal said high-demand societies are witnessing a 10-15 per cent uptick in rental value as well. Opening of schools and offices have had a dual effect in terms of pace at which tenants have returned to the metros.

Nobroker, a unicorn, has received investments from marquee investors such as General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Elevation Capital, Moore Capital, Beenext and KTB Ventures.