Online marketplace Snapdeal and Tata Value Homes, a subsidiary of Tata Housing with focus on affordable housing, on Tuesday, announced partnership to enable users to buy houses online.
As part of the partnership, about 1,000 homes across projects in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai will be put up for sale on Snapdeal. These houses are priced between Rs.18 lakh and Rs.70 lakh and range from 1 BHK to 3 BHK.
“According to reports, one in every two online real estate searches is to buy property and there is a $43 billion market opportunity here. We started selling homes through our own website last year in December and have already sold over 600 units. This partnership will help us take that to the next level,” Tata Housing Development Company Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales, A. Harikesh, told reporters here.
Tata Value Homes will continue to sell through its own portal as well.
Upon possession of the house, customers buying the house through Snapdeal will get Rs.10,000 a month for a year as an assured rent (whether they stay on premise or lease it out) as part of the deal.
“Details about the project and other things are shared on the website. Registered users can book a unit for Rs.30,000 and then our offline team takes over,” he said. However, the booking amount is not refundable in case the customer does not buy the house.
“We already have close to 50,000 merchants on our board. I think real estate, as a category, will do well on our platform because people trust our brand. We want to offer our customers the best deals,” Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said.
Mr. Harikesh said the company also planned to launch new projects in Kolkata and Delhi-NCR before March 2015, which might also get added to the deal.