Co-founders of www.Placio.in talk to us about about relocation woes of expats and Placio’s one point solution to them
Globalization of worldwide economies has made it common for people to reside in a foreign country for many years as part of their employment. India is one such country that has attracted a growing (and increasingly diverse) population of expats living in its major cities. In addition to the nation’s capital, Delhi, other metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai have all developed sizeable communities of foreign residents. Foreign nationals living in India include diplomats, corporate employees, students, researchers, contractual workers, and even medical tourists seeking long term treatments.
As expats find themselves looking at prolonged durations of stay in India, finding a suitable accommodation for the period has become a tricky issue to address. Some companies, for example, house their senior level foreign employees in hotels for up to 6 months – with the top management of large MNCs often staying in 5 star properties. However, this rather expensive option cannot be afforded by all expats. So, what do they do? Try and deal with individual real estate brokers or firms? But that would require expats to stay in a temporary accommodation till they find a suitable property. And just would they really know if a property is ‘suitable’? What if the expat is looking for a house for his/her family? They would need to find international schools, safe neighbourhoods, various maintenance/ domestic help related issues, in addition to the gamut of legal matters pertaining to rental and lease agreements.
Expats in India have had to go through a terrible time before they finally settle down into an accommodation, and often find themselves compromising on their standard of living as they are never quite able to find housing and services that meet their needs and expectations. It is to fill gap that www.Placio.in was created. Packaged as the complete expat housing solution, www.Placio.in claims that it is the only service provider that an expat would need to contact in order to solve their accommodation related problems and requirements in India.
Here, we have a chat with Placio’sCo-Founders RohitPateria, AnkushArora, and Ajit Panda to find out more about this exciting company.
Tell us a little about www.Placio.in.
In the simplest terms, www.Placio.in is go-to service provider for expats looking for long term housing and accommodation related solutions. Whether you are a family working single, or student, www.Placio.in helps you find a home that is exactly what you are looking for without any of the hassles usually associated with finding an accommodation in Indian cities – particularly those faced by foreign residents. www.Placio.in also offers a complete property management and secured digital rent collection platform to property owners.We are creating a trustworthy home rental platform with cutting edge technology as major enabler that works for both, tenants and landlords.
- What would you say sets www.Placio.in apart from its rivals? What is its Unique Selling Point (USP)?
Unlike common property listing platforms which are essentially system oriented and devoid of any personal engagement, www.Placio.in first understands the exact requirements of renters and worksat the ground level to fulfill it with verified,carefully curated homes. We think that is our USP – we are not brokers, we are curators. Our team of real estate experts is well versed with local conditions, compliance issues, and logistical requirements. We are geared toassist clientsat every step of both, the pre and post move-in stage.
Every client is different, each having their unique requirements. Single men and women always find it extremely difficult to find the right accommodation. Safety and secured is a major concern for them. Every family has different priorities in terms of type of accommodation, location, amenities, and other preferences such as accessibility to international schools and ease of transportation. Placio works with highly credible brokers who are force to reckon with. With network of over 100 partners in Delhi NCR and exclusive, quality inventory, www.Placio.in is well positioned to fulfill any kind of expat housing requirement.
And we don’t stop there. www.Placio.in uses a cutting edge CRM platform with algorithms in place that make user experience seamless. It also acts as a tech platform which helps property owners and property managers to not only manage their properties but also collect payment through a secured payment gateway. This is an extremely convenient arrangement for tenants as well as landlords.
- How was the idea of www.Placio.in born? What inspired you to develop this offering?
We believe that the foundation of www.Placio.in was laid through each of our personal experiences as we haveall moved to Delhi from small towns. We have all faced issues related to accommodation from the time we were students living alone in the city till having to look for accommodations that would be suitable for our families. At the time, listing platforms were only informative, simply listing details of various properties. We found them to be just glorified and glamorized versions of real estate classified. There was no real value in them. At the same time, most of the real estate brokerswe met didn’t really inspire trust and lacked professionalism.We found ourselves wishing there was one place that we could go to that would solve all our house hunting and relocating problems for us.
And it was this wish that gave birth to the idea of www.Placio.in. The Indian rental market is a massive, $100 Billion opportunity. With the nation going digital, and a rapidly increasing number of people looking for online solutions to their day to day needs, we believed that it was time that real estate and rental services online were taken seriously. We wanted to revolutionize the way tenants found properties online. We wanted to take away the mammoth waste of time and effort on clients visiting properties that are clearly not aligned with their needs. We wanted to eradicate all the trouble that a tenant endures during the house hunt, moving in, and even the maintenance stage.
And this is what www.Placio.in does – it is an answer to all OUR prayers as house hunters.
- How has the journey been so far? What were the challenges you faced?
It has been nearly a year since we launched www.Placio.in and the journeyso far has been very rewarding and satisfying. It was a very difficult and, honestly, risky decision to give up stable, well-paying corporate jobs and venture into a startup. But we are were very passionate about the market need that this idea sought to address and were confident about its feasibility as well. The kind of acceptance www.Placio.in is getting from both tenants and property owners isoverwhelming. www.Placio.in first started operations at Noida and, after swiftly tastingsuccess;it grew to include other parts of Delhi NCR including Gurgaon. Today, www.Placio.in also works with key partners in Mumbai and Bangalore for expat housing solutions.
- How has the response been? What do your clients have to say about their experience with www.Placio.in?
During the past few months we have assisted numerous house hunters find their ideal homes. From the point that our client’s got in touch with us, till services they received even after they had moved into their chosen homes – our clients were thrilled. We are extremely happy that we were able to make the house hunting and moving process that much smoother for them. We are being praised both by property owners and tenants, and have over 1200 Likes on Facebook in no time.We feel honored.
- What is the future of www.Placio.in? Where do you see it 5 and 10 years from now?What can Placio’s clients look forward to?
The kind of response that we have seen in the past few months has been very encouraging. We are firmly committed to making www.Placio.in India’s largest, comprehensive real estate rental solutions company – one city at a time.
We have been actively talking to the client’s we have served, tenants as well as landlords. We use their feedback as an effective guide on the areas that we need to work on and prioritize. Our clients would like to see www.Placio.in as an All India player with capabilities to fulfill all their requirements in their journey towards settling into a home. They have specifically expressed a wish that www.Placio.in begins operations in even more cities across India. We couldn’t agree more! As such, our clients can expect www.Placio.in to have a strong foothold in many more cities as we continue to expand our product/services offering. Our journey has just begun.
Media Contact
Company Name: Palcio
Contact Person: Mr. Rohit Pateria
Email: rp@placio.in
Phone: 906-914-3770
Country: India
Website: www.placio.in