[Update] Housing.com introduces 'home loans' and 'rental agreements', integrates features with the online platform

Housing.com is an upcoming online real estate portal that has raised around $20 million till date (read: Clash of the Titans with India's real estate). Vying to increase their market share, Housing.com, recently announced the launch of ‘Housing Home Loans’ and 'rental agreements'. This move intends to make it easier for people to apply for home loans and rental agreements online .

[Update: 17/11/2014]

Housing.com recently launched ‘Rental Agreement’ for their Bangalore users, a product that helps people create and customize property agreements online. The product allows customers to draft their lease document by giving inputs like rent, property area, security deposit and facilities available for a basic fee of Rs.75 besides the cost of stamp paper and taxes.

Solving the Pain Point: Time consuming Legalities

Finding the right house is difficult, but the bigger problems come in post zeroing in on your property - in the form of mind-numbing legalities. Real Estate transactions are full of paperwork and confusing legal documents that forces tenants and landlords to spend days trying to get their agreements from the registration office. In India over 500,000 houses go on rent every month, and legally require a rental agreement after the transaction takes place.

How it Works

The product helps people create and customize an agreement from wherever they are, as long as they have access to the internet. Users give inputs like rent, property area, security deposit, facilities available etc. and whenever required can also review the clauses in the background.

The unique feature of this Rental Agreement is that Housing.com pays stamp duty on the behalf of tenants and landlords, and delivers the e-stamped rental agreement at their doorstep within 48 hours. The platform also has an e-stamp calculator that ensures users pay the correct stamp-duty.

Co-Founder, Advitiya Sharma says “People spend 4 hours on average at the registration office trying to get their Rental Agreement paperwork done. From a national perspective that’s 30,000 man-days of productivity gone down the drain annually! Housing Rental Agreement will let people do the same thing online, in just 5 minutes.”

You can check it out here.

The reasoning behind 'Home Loans'

Over INR 20,000 crore worth of Home Loans are disbursed in India every month [based on NHB report on Emerging Trends in Retail Housing Loan Sector]. With numbers as high as these, even as little as 1% reduction of cost of loan can save people more than 200 Crore Rupees every month.

Unfortunately, most of the advertized home loan rates are subjected to more calculation and do not indicate the final rate applicable to the user. If people can find a home loan that perfectly meets their requirements, the savings can be substantial. Housing.com is taking a data-based approach to solve this problem.

What is the Housing solution?

Housing Home Loans is a tool that helps home seekers find a home loan that is customized to finance their purchases. Housing has partnered with major banks and top financial institutions to deeply integrate into the product, a set of Rule Engines.

These Rule Engines incorporate the banks’ policies and terms to give the user an accurate calculation of the Rate of Interest. The user can not only compare an array of loan offers but also go ahead and apply for the loan on the platform itself. By controlling the loan amount and tenure people can compare the total cost of each loan offer and minimize it to find the most suitable offer.

Housing.com has already partnered with 6 of the top financial institutions - CitiBank, L&T Finance, Axis Bank, DHFL, PNB Housing Finance and Bajaj Finserv.

Advitiya Sharma, CoFounder of Housing.com told YourStory

Lot of people have negative sentiments when they go to a bank and apply for home loans and do not get what they desire. This could be because they are not aware of the best deals on offer or the right procedures to go about it. We have clearly outlined the basics that one needs to know with over 50 articles under the “Home Loans Guide” section on our blog, so that users have the authentic information and the know how.

Housing will ensure total privacy for their users and not request for their contact number or email ID till the users themselves reach out to Housing. Advitiya also confirmed that this feature will be available on the Android and iOS apps as well soon. Beyond this, Housing has established a Home Loans Experts team that will be available throughout the day on their national helpline 03-333-333-333 to answer any query a potential home buyer might have.

You can check out their Home Loans feature here and browse through their “ Home Loans Guide” here.

You might enjoy reading our story for the soul: Behind the scenes with Advitiya Sharma