Here's excerpts from the interview:

1) With big industry players already in the market, how difficult was it for you and the team to break the shackles?

Saurabh Garg:Of course it was not easy. Before we started our firm, all of founders have gone through the pain of finding a home via a broker which was very broken process. The entire experience was not great. My first experience happened in 2007 in Mumbai when I was looking for a house in Bandra. 

NoBroker came as we realised that millions of people like us go through similar experience every day. It was a genuine customer problem as other players – who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars – were working with brokers. There was not a single guy who was saying let me solve customer's problem. The pain point was that there was information asymmetry, high transaction cost and even if I as an owner post any property on any of the platforms, brokers used to contact.

We started with a very genuine insight that customer is pained, customer doesn't want to pay brokerage, there are lot of people who want to save money, who think the process is inefficient. 

The journey was not easy because we were building a two-sided market place, but because it was a genuine customer problem and all of us spent a lot of time speaking to customers, even now. 

2) NoBroker has over 75 lakh properties registered on the portal. How big is your team and what's the recipe behind maintaining such clients?

Saurabh Garg: We have been operating for the last 8 years. There were many people who tried to expand to 50 cities. But, real estate is a hyper-local thing. If you want a place in Navi Mumbai, then you will look for a place in Kharghar, you won't even go to Vashi. So I need supply there, demand there, at a very localised level.

ALSO READ: NoBroker becomes India's first proptech unicorn after $210 mn funding round

Through NoBroker, we always ensured that we go deeper in the cities where we are and that's why more and more sellers and owners came and listed the property. 

And secondly, owner also said I don't want to pay the brokerage and so they came directly on the (NoBroker) platform. On our platform, we ensured its only a genuine owner or buyer who can contact, no broker or agent can do anything on the platform.

3) Your firm became the first proptech unicorn in November 2021. And now startup also has secondary businesses. What's next?

Saurabh Garg: What we think of us is that 'we want to be a one stop shop for anything that you not need to do in a real estate'. So, in the entire journey of real estate, wherever there is something that is broken, we will try and solve that.

I think all these insights kept on coming because we keep on speaking to the the customers, who kept on telling new things. Our idea is 'anything you need to do on real estate in India, you should be able to to it on NoBroker'. We will keep listening to the customers and  keep evolving whatever the customer requires.

4) You people have snatched away many jobs, who used to work as middlemen. There were reports that the office was attacked too. How was it in the initial period and how is it now?

Saurabh Garg: I don't think we have snatched people's jobs. We believe whoever is doing a good job will co-exist. Whoever does the job faster, whoever does it more efficient, customers will go to them. 

In 2015, brokers attacked our office which was a very horrifying experience for us. We had to vacate the office and work from make shift office for almost 2-3 months. But, slowly brokers also realised that there will be opportunities for them too. Now, I think we co-exist. There are no threatening calls, no attacks for last 7 years and now things are better.

5) Real estate is a risky business, considered to be for the powerful and cunning people. How's the tech, esp. AI helping the firm? Plus what are the prospects for upcoming AI-based prop-tech firms?

Saurabh Garg: I don't think only the powerful and cunning people get into the real estate business. Over a period of time the industry (real estate) has become well organised. 

Artificial Intelligence play a very critical role. I think that this is what an AI should be doing – understanding your requirement and then suggesting what are the best properties for you. This is what the role of AI is going to be. Our AI guides owners and customers in getting solved the issues related with rent, locality and other aspects based on the needs.

ALSO READ: Bengaluru emerges as preferred choice among real estate investors in APAC region: Report

6) Following the ease in COVID-19 restrictions, firms have started calling their staff to offices in major cities. How do you see this trend working, as most of the firms are still okay with WFH, while several employees seek to stay in their native places.

Saurabh Garg: I really think it will depend on the kind of work which people are doing. There are some work in which probably you need to do it individually – you don't need to come to office, or just for one or two days in a week. While there will some firms who will say this work requires lot of collaboration between the teams. 

From March, we are seeing that lot of people coming back to the cities. We saw lot of demand in terms of rentals and people coming and looking for properties for last six months.

7) Major cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad have issues related to waterlogging if it rains continuously. Rather than helping the people, the rentals are becoming costlier every single month. What is NoBroker doing in it? Why are proptechs not helping in decreasing the property rates?

Saurabh Garg: I think you should think of us as a platform, as in exchange. If you ask NSE to reduce the price of stocks, how can it help? What we can do is that we can provide you the options based on you budget and other requirements. Our platform is helping people by reducing this information asymmetry and providing information at your finger tips what works best for you.

If you look at rentals, it has not increased homogenously in every part of city. There are some parts where the rentals have not increased that much, while there are others where it surged a lot. People can take a conscious decision if the information is available. If they have to do it physically, its very difficult.

8) Recently, several reports claimed there is a hike in property rentals, and in eight major cities, the rates have surged dramatically. Don't you think its high time that house rentals become pocket friendly?

Saurabh Garg: One needs to first understand why the rents are rising. It is simply a demand and supply side of business. All the people working the large cities had gone to their home towns and working from there. Suddenly they started coming back from March onwards to September, very large number of people returned. Clearly, lot of demand came in. 

Secondly, what happened that during the last two years of COVID, the construction took a hit as workers gone back during the pandemic and the environment was not conducive for them to work. So the construction was halted and it created an imbalance. The demand was high and supply was less.

Also, people felt that they need bigger houses, to live within societies, so that too came in a big way. You will find that the rentals have increased in places which are closer to work places like techparks or gated communities. But this is a demand-supply issue. I think over a period of time, this will normalise. I don't know is the rents will decrease, but they will stop increasing gradually. 

9) How has the Real Estate sector performed in 2022 according to you despite inflation, hiked repo rate, increased CPI, and WPI?

Saurabh Garg: Rentals pre-March was not that good, but post March till November the real estate sector performed really well. We have seen houses getting rented in few hours on the platform after it gets listed. Owners are also happy who made rental losses in past 2 years.

If you look at the buy-sell, this pandemic played a very big role. Interest rates became very low 1-2 years back. Secondly, people actually realised – during the pandemic – the importance of owning a house. Thirdly, in pandemic, people saved the down payment required to buy a house. The EMI to income ratio suddenly became lowest in past 10 years and this resulted in lot of new buyers.

I think it is one of the best years, as for 8-9 years the real estate didn't do really well due several disruptions like GST implementation, RERA, demonetisation, etc. But in 2022, the real estate sector actually performed very well and we are seeing a upcycle in the sector.

10) Nykaa and Paytm already did it. When can we expect NoBroker's IPO?

Saurabh Garg: We don't have a timeline, we are definitely moving towards that. Our expectations is that in next three to five years, we will look into an IPO.

ALSO READ: NoBroker to double technology and product team in two months

11) Last one, What is the real estate industry betting on in 2023 and what are its expectations from Budget 2023?

Saurabh Garg:Apart from residential properties, commercial properties have also started doing extremely well after the market opened up. Looking at last 8-9 years, real estate investment was not happening as people were buying it for their own consumption. I think what is going to change now is that more and more people will come into real estate as an investment option.

On Budget 2023: Every year we tell that there should be more tax exemptions or investment in the real estate sector. Secondly, can the GST be brought within the registration cost itself as it is separate currently.