Realty BI: Housing.com's Latest Acquisition

Housing.com has acquired Realty BI, a Delhi based startup that deals with business intelligence in the real estate space, for Rs. 12-24 crore. This is Housing.com’s second major acquisition this year, after it had snapped up Indian Real Estate Forum for Rs. 8 crore in March.

Founded in 2013, Realty BI aims to simplify the realty business for lenders and investors by enabling informed decisions. The company claims to provide uncluttered and intelligent information and study trends in the real estate space. It uses both due diligence and data analytics to arrive at these actionable insights.

Much like housing.com, Realty BI’s stakeholders include the gamut of players in the real estate space

Customers:

1. Housing Loan Providers: They need inputs on new projects being launched, and information on which projects are doing well and are on schedule. They also need market intelligence reports to manage their risks pertaining to collateral security.

2. PE Players, Developers and Construction finance players: These players require reports on Real Estate for understanding market dynamics in order to take informed calls.

3. Individual Home Buyers: The individual home buyers can use this data to make sound investment decisions and for keeping track of their investments.

Services:

1. Project Approval Information: This has details on the approval status of the housing projects that have been announced. For this, Realty BI sources original documents and tracks progress along with a legal team.

2. Project Monitoring Information: This has details on the progress of ongoing projects. Realty BI tracks percentage of completion and provides photographs of the status of the site. It also provides estimates of costs of delay.

3. Business Intelligence Reports: Like Housing, Realty BI also likes heat maps. Its software shows heat zones where prices have moved up sharply and zones where prices have a downward movement. It also tracks demand and supply.

Team:

Realty BI is founded by a team with a background in real estate and banking, which is evident in the product they’ve created. The CEO, Rajeev Nohwar, is a Civil Engineer and has an MBA from Jodhpur University. He has more than 16 years of leadership experience in Home Loan & Construction Finance with Bank of America, ICICI Bank & YES Bank. The Director, Product and Strategy, Shruti Sharma, has 8 years of experience with several banks with a specialization in mortgage division.

The company’s LinkedIn profile says that it has 11-50 employees, and appears to be hiring aggressively in Delhi and Pune. A total of 70 positions are advertised on its website, ranging from roles like Surveyor, Data Entry Operator, and Technical Managers.

Given Housing.com’s relentless focus on data, Realty BI should complement its parent company well. Housing prides itself on its data collection and representation capabilities, and believes that it is a factor that differentiates it from the competition. With this acquisition, Housing strengthens its data portfolio, which is already is amongst the best in the space. This would be to the detriment of players like CommonFloor, which were also reportedly interested in acquiring Realty BI. However, given Housing’s recent extravagant marketing campaign and reports that the company is burning cash at a rapid pace, it remains to be seen if Realty BI turns out to be a sound investment.