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• In this PropTechBuzz podcast, Alaviya Rizvi, Entrepreneur in Residence, PropTechBuzz discusses how the rental experience is being reinvented in India with Shail Daswani, a dynamic entrepreneur and co-founder of Flent, India’s first full-stack rental brand
• The demand for well-maintained properties by the top 1% of working professionals in tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru can generate revenue worth $ 100 million for a start-up like Flent.
• Flent is short for ‘flexible rent’ or ‘flat rent’. It’s a whole new way to rent properties. There is no brokerage, low deposit and a range of flexible options with lock-in periods of 3, 6 and 11 months.
• Flent is developing a model called the Rain DNA, a sales assistance tool that predicts the right supply and demand in the rental markets.
In this latest podcast, Alaviya Rizvi, Entrepreneur in Residence at PropTechBuzz discusses how the rental experience is being reinvented in India with Shail Daswani, a dynamic entrepreneur and co-founder of Flent. After completing his engineering degree at IIT-Kanpur, Shail Daswani worked as a product manager and a growth manager in various SaaS companies. His love for setting up homes flourished as an Airbnb host and quickly turned into India’s first full-stack rental brand – Flent. Shail Daswani combined his love for storytelling, selling and discovering unique homes to launch this start-up which is redefining the rental experience in India.Â
The rental space in India is going through an interesting phase both on the demand and the supply side. On the demand side, there is a growth of a highly affluent class of working professionals looking for niche rental properties. On the supply side, there is a rising number of landlords buying properties in the top-tier cities of India from a purely investment perspective. Flent is building a new standard of renting by creating an experience layer – helping landlords and tenants match with each other through the use ofl technology. According to Shail Daswani, the demand for well-maintained properties by the top 1% of working professionals in tier 1 cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru can easily generate revenue worth $ 100 million for a start-up like Flent.
Flent is short for ‘flexible rent’ or ‘flat rent’. Shail Daswani and his co-founders believe that Flent is 10x better than renting. It is a whole new way to rent where people move into a tastefully furnished home straight out of a lifestyle magazine. Everything from carpets and wall paintings to kitchen cutlery is available right from day one. You can use Flent search to discover the best properties according to the location you want. There is no brokerage, the deposit is super-low and users can choose from a range of flexible options with lock-in periods of 3, 6 and 11 months. The company boasts of dedicated customer service that takes care of all of the queries. Unlike the traditional renting experience in India, Flent offers unparalleled transparency to landlords and tenants with zero hidden costs or hassles.
The first problem Flent is solving is discovery. The platform sets itself apart from both traditional brokers who show a limited inventory and the real estate listing services who have no control over their inventory and a user has to go through an average of 100-200 homes before finding anything. Every house that Flent acquires as a company is aligned to its end-user who values convenience and great homes located in the most sought-after neighborhoods.
By acquiring, furnishing and offering the best of properties, on a standardized rental platform, Flent aims to own the entire experience for the end user. Flent’s overarching offerings are streamlining the existing rental market in India with intuitive services designed to ease how properties are discovered and leased. According to Shail Daswani, technology is a great leveller in the real estate market in India which is traditionally perceived as a low-trust market.
Mayank Lalwani, co-founder of Flent has been instrumental in the technology and operations side of the start-up. The team has managed to bring down the number of days to flip a property from 12 to 3 days. By collaborating with amateur interior designers, they have even managed to create a community of home decor enthusiasts.
Flent’s core business model is heavily dependent on technology. As the company is partnering with landlords using a unique incentives policy, maintaining the right occupancy levels is the greatest challenge. The company is trying to develop a model internally called the Rain DNA which powers the entire business. The model can be perceived as a sales assistance tool to predict the right supply and demand in the rental market in India. As demand and supply fluctuate in the rental markets in cities, Rain DNA helps to narrow down the occupancy gap through data analytics. At scale, Rain DNA will power most of Flent’s pricing and acquisition decisions. The model will be able to analyze real-time data and predict the rental yields and occupancy levels for properties. Flent is currently using this model to qualify its demand and supply leads.
The company has also launched a program for privileged access to their properties called Reserve. Rain DNA is behind all these innovations. Flent is also considering the use of AR / VR technologies to digitally stage their properties in the future. With its unique tech stack, Flent aims to be the default renting choice for the top 1% and grow into India’s most trustworthy property management brand.
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By Proptechbuzz
By Ravi Kumar
