NestAway – A service to find Rental homes
Driving to office on the busy roads of Bangalore, a hoarding caught my eye. I talked about an app based service for prospective tenants to find a rental home in the city. It is called NestAway and I was quite intrigued by the service model. When I reached office, I digged into it and found a bit more about Nestaway. The trend among the millennials is that they are never settled in one place. They keep moving and for most of them, it does not makes sense to own a house. But finding a rental home has its own challenge. Being an urban migrant myself, I know the challenges out of personal experience. I purchased a house in Bangalore, just to avoid dealing with all the issues on a rental home. So how can NestAway help? Deepak Dhar is the co-founder and head of Produce and Experience at NestAway. Here is a transcript of a chat with Mr Deepak.
This chat will help you understand NestAway, so let us hear from the lion’s mouth.
When was the app launched and last updated?
The NestAway app on Android was launched in Feb,2015 and iOS in Nov,2015.
With few clicks on the app, prospective tenants can find, book and move into a rental home of their choice. The app makes it convenient for prospective tenants to locate homes through 3 easy steps: Search-Schedule-Book. Tenants can also avail other services listed in the app.
The latest update introduces the individuals to exciting set of features. From getting a virtual tour of the home to an array of filters and offers, the app makes it easier for the prospective tenant to find their dream home faster.
The NestAway app is regularly updated with new features being introduced from time to time.
What’s the next feature you’re working on for it?
Few of the larger themes being worked upon are:
- Leverage the community – When a nestie moves into a house almost always there are many already living in vicinity. Slew of features to let newbie nesties find whatever they need to help them settle in conveniently.
- Make sharing frictionless – In a shared living context the whole sharing process should be as frictionless as possible whether it is sharing costs for electricity or sharing internet bandwidth or making decisions like what to have in dinner or who will do what this week!
- Take things online – Visualisation of houses, Signing of agreements, Registration of agreements, KYC for tenants.
- Smart Houses – Smart Locks, Smart Electricity Meters
- Safety and security – It is one of the top priority for NestAway. With this as their focus, the company plans to use advanced technology to provide top notch safety and security measures. Hence, Nestaway will soon introduce interesting safety features which will be extremely useful to the nesties.
What’s that one unique feature in your app that other similar apps don’t have?
NestAway’s services are holistic in nature as they provide end-to-end solutions. Apart from providing the basic service of allowing users to go through the various properties and book their home, the app allow tenants to store all the important information like rental agreements and rent receipts. Added to that, it allows tenants to pay their deposit and monthly rent through the app. It also allows them to raise any service and maintenance issue, thereby, making life easier for the tenant and the owner
How would your app help my readers in his/her shifting to a new city?
The immediate problem an urban migrant faces while moving to a new city is to find a good accommodation basis their needs and preferences. Here’s where NestAway comes to rescue by helping the tenant find a home of their choice. The NestAway app allows prospective tenants to browse through fully furnished rooms, houses, flats, apartments and homes. The apps allows one to filter their searches to find the right home. Additionally, it allows them to instantly book flats of their choice.
At Nestaway, we are have tried to create an ecosystem of services where the tenant can raise a ticket for any service related issue and we ensure that it is dealt with at priority.
How many downloads has your app seen?
The app has more than 600 thousand downloads across iOS and Android.
Which all cities is your service available in within India? Please give detailed stats on number of places in each city and how many renters you’ve settled in the past few months.
As one of the fastest growing companies in online managed home rental segment, NestAway is available in eight cities – Bengaluru, New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, Ghaziabad and Mumbai – and plans to cover more cities by 2020. NestAway has over 25,000 tenants across cities with 8,000 owners.
Which all platforms is your app available on? Plans to bring it on others?
The app is currently available on Android and iOS.
How much does your app/service cost?
The app is available for free of cost. There is no extra charge involved for installing the app and browsing through our various properties.
