Moving to a bigger house? Sell your old home in exchange for the new one

Bengaluru-based real estate firm Puravankara is assisting customers in selling their old property and upgrading to a new one from it

Trading your old car, laptop or mobile phone, is one of the easiest ways to get rid of the old asset and upgrade to a new model. But what do you do if you wish to move from your 2BHK apartment to a 3BHK? 

Experts say real estate developers are sitting on an unsold stock finding it difficult to sell properties because of the paucity of buyers. The situation worsens when it comes to individual sellers who want to upgrade their homes but do not have any infrastructure backing and end up selling the property at a loss. 

Taking a leaf out of the automobile and the electronics goods industry, real estate company Puravankara Ltd has come up with a first-of-its-kind initiative to assist customers in selling their old property and then upgrade to a new Puravankara home. The seller can choose from an array of ready and under-construction portfolio of the Bengaluru-based firm, including premium and affordable homes.

“About eight out of 10 residents in Bengaluru who are looking to resell their existing properties are often unaware or misinformed about the resale/upgrade process – from valuation to finding the right buyer. As a result, the process gets derailed, delayed and eventually dropped owing to the confusion. They do not end up upgrading to their dream home. We decided to address this issue through our resale assistance programme,” said Anand Narayanan, Chief Operating Officer, Puravankara.

The company is facilitating the initiative with a host of benefits, including flexible payment plans and easy loan facility from HDFC, ICICI and State Bank of India.

If a customer makes an intent to upgrade himself to a Purvankara home, the company will help him resell his real estate property, including plots, located in Bengaluru. The moment a customer signs up for a new home, a third party valuer will price his old property for sale according to the market prices. The customer will also get close to a year rebate to make the payments.

Puravankara has also joined hands with online property portals housing.com and 99acres which would provide a six months premium listing to the customers. The company has also identified six real estate agents who will assist the homebuyer for a year to sell his old property. “If the real estate agent is able to sell the home, we will pay the brokerage fee as a part of the marketing cost,” said Narayanan. 

In addition to their flagship expo Big 72 Hours Home Fest from June 15-17 in Bengaluru, where customers can get their properties instantly valued, the company is also conducting a resale home mela in September. Here only existing old properties will be available for sale, which go on sale once they have upgraded to Puravankara  home. The company is looking to reach out to around 5,000 resellers through this initiative. Followed by Bengaluru, the flagship expo will be held at Chennai, Pune, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kochi and Mangalore.

The resale assistance programme which the company is terming as "home exchange programme" is not restricted to Bengaluru and sellers across India can list their properties for sale after contracting to buy a Puravankara home but all the assistance services won’t be available to such clients. Resale agents will be available only for Bengaluru clients, but the one year payment plan and online property portals will continue to support the prospective seller, informed the company.