How to rent/hunt a house without brokerage

Gone are the days when people use to find stability in jobs and lives. High opportunities offered by corporates have made us much more nomadic in nature and thus shifting has become part of our life now. Many a times shifting is as frequent as once in every 2-3 years due to change in our or spouse’s job or if the landlord wants to sell his house and many other blah blah reasons.

For house hunting mostly we have to shell out a handsome amount as a commission to the broker who introduces us to the various flats in our desired locality. We always try hard to save this money by either asking our friends or relatives to help us find some good option or sometimes we visit various houses with a hanging “To Let” board and do not even leave the option of gossiping with guards and gate keepers.

But times have changed now and many startups are just working day and night so that we can save our commission and instead spend it on other better things. In this article, I will introduce you to such startups through which you can easily rent a house without a brokerage. These companies also helps in finalising the rent agreement between the owner and tenant and thus are a win-win proposition for both of them.

For the benefit of readers I am listing out some of those startups here:

1. Nobroker.in
Nobroker is operational in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Pune. Using Nobroker, homeowners can list their properties for rent with details that include personal and property details, locality details, rent and amenities. Nobroker claims to have more than 30,000 listings every month with more than 4 lakh customers connecting on a monthly basis.

2. Grabhouse
Grabhouse is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Chennai and Kolkata. Mumbai-based Grabhouse was founded in July 2013, and claims to have served 10 lakh customers through its online platform, with 30,000 locations covered in 11 Indian cities. The broker-free platform lists houses and PG accommodations on rent.

3. Zocalo
Zocalo is operational in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Mumbai. Delhi-based Zocalo lists PGs/ hostels, shared apartments, and rental apartments on their site. Zocalo also offers ancillary services like preparation of rent agreement and movers and packers.

4. Flatchat
Flatchat is operational in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai. Flatchat is an app only platform and it lets users connect with potential flatmates, prospective owners and other seekers to group with by providing location and requirement based matches.