[hemant.kamat]

I'm currently selling a plot in Goa, and have signed up for paid 1~2 month subscriptions of both 99acres & MagicBricks. The 300+ buyers searching for plots in my locality suddenly diminished to 35~40 after I purchased their Advanced/Gold plan, and most of the "verified buyers" turned out to be brokers, unrelated (buyers looking for rental accommodation or apartments, buyers searching for plots in other cities/states), or just random people not even remotely associated with real estate. And, I get at least 10 calls everyday to upgrade my subscription to Assisted/Titanium. Needless to say, I won't be renewing either.

OTOH, I've found OLX responses promising, mostly brokers looking for a 2% cut or builders looking to get into JVs, and a few genuine buyers. Nobody from OLX has called me to upgrade my listing, although the website/app does pop-up paid offers to promote my listing from time to time, but nothing as intrusive as 99acres/MagicBricks.

Note to Mods: @GTO, can I post a link to my plot here on TBHP?

[varkey]

I had a free listing on Magicbricks for a villa that I wanted to sell. Got emails about couple of people who were interested, but me being in the free plan, could not see the buyer's details. Then one day I got a similar notification about a buyer showing interest and on following the link, they showed a 5 day plan for Rs 199 to view the buyer details. I was like why not, and made the payment with a credit card. It was a one-off payment and there was no indication of any sort of auto debit or subscription, it just showed the plan is valid for 5 days.

I got the buyer details but then it didn't proceed any further as they were just checking. Then around the 5 day mark, I get a message saying my card has been debited of Rs 4415. I checked my email and I noticed that there was an email saying the trial pack expires today and I'd be charged Rs 4415. This email had got buried in the 100 other spammy emails they send each day. But the funny thing is, this is the only email or communication from them saying that I'd be charged. No where during the purchase flow was this mentioned.

I was irritated, emailed/called Magicbricks but they kept giving the same BS about the plan is activated and nothing can be done. I tried escalating this further and had multiple calls, but they were not budging and kept saying a refund can't be done.

Interestingly as per current RBI guidelines, if there is an auto debit created, the bank should have notified me of its creation and also prior to debit, but no such thing happened. So I reached out to the bank and said this transaction was un-authorised, after a bit of back and forth and after me citing the RBI guidelines regarding auto debit, the bank opened the dispute and blocked the card. Few days later they gave an interim credit and I think 60-90 days later, they gave the final credit. Interestingly the plan is still shown as active in Magicbricks, and I still get buyer contact details, but the quality is very low for the leads and none of them has materialised so far.

I wonder how they were able to charge my card without setting up a proper standing instruction as per the latest guidelines. I have seen numerous cases where genuine monthly subscription transactions not getting processed due to the revised RBI guidelines, but this transaction went through without any such issues. I am suspecting them storing the card details and processing it through some other shady means.

[SixPistons]

Originally Posted by varkey

I wonder how they were able to charge my card without setting up a proper standing instruction as per the latest guidelines. I have seen numerous cases where genuine monthly subscription transactions not getting processed due to the revised RBI guidelines, but this transaction went through without any such issues. I am suspecting them storing the card details and processing it through some other shady means.

That sounds about right, I believe banks cannot disobey RBI guidelines in design, since these days they are heavily penalised if a design discrepancy is found so they won’t take a chance.

But, if MagicBricks is storing the details and making a fresh one off transaction with bank not having the mandate for that transaction on that card already, then won’t it require an OTP to go ahead with the transaction? I think that is how such a fresh transaction would proceed, without pre-existing standing instructions on the card.

[DieselAnna]

Originally Posted by Samfromindia

Nice compilation ! Thanks for sharing.

I love watching the weekly episodes of The Tenant, brought by Money Control in collaboration with 99Acres.

https://Youtu.be/D57S3gAr4Og?feature=shared

This is one show I love to watch lazily on a Sunday morning. It has great insights into rental living. I like the host as he is sensible and sometimes very straight forward with his questions.

[mufeez1234]

Posted a free listing on 99acres for my property in Hyderabad.
Got a couple of calls from people based in Delhi saying they want to invest in Hyderabad for passive rental purpose. They had no idea about Hyderabad property market.
This was followed by a call from 99acres sales team saying they can enhance my listing for better engagement if I buy their premium packages.
Realised calls from Delhi was bait to lure me to buy their packages and politely declined.

[easyrider]

Since this a forum for real estate, wanted to check if anyone know real estate agents in KasturiNagar, Bangalore east. I am looking to buy a plot 30x40 in that area, unfortunately not getting any good leads.

[Everlearner]

Originally Posted by easyrider

Since this a forum for real estate, wanted to check if anyone know real estate agents in KasturiNagar, Bangalore east. I am looking to buy a plot 30x40 in that area, unfortunately not getting any good leads.

We were searching for rental house around Kasturi nagar and could not find good agents having decent stock of leads. However, found a good agent in Kalyan nagar (not very far from Kasturi Nagar) through whom we got our rental house . He has office called "Square Feet realty" in HRBR layout next to The Filter coffee restaurant. He runs an impressive shop with 10+ assistants to handle client visits and has many leads. I recommend checking once with them.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/D7D6Lz9KdMWKG7W5A

[jinojohnt]

I gave my phone number at commonfloor.com, and realized that this was a big mistake.
There is nothing of interest in their website, and executives keep on calling you saying they have interesting properties for you. When I ask them to send me the id if the property is listed on their website, they are unable to provide.

[how_you_doing]

Originally Posted by jinojohnt

I gave my phone number at commonfloor.com, and realized that this was a big mistake.
There is nothing of interest in their website, and executives keep on calling you saying they have interesting properties for you. When I ask them to send me the id if the property is listed on their website, they are unable to provide.

You always keep 2 phone numbers for the same purpose. Have a dedicated number and WhatsApp for platforms involving real estate, loans, cars, credit cards etc as well as OLX. Any site that can sell you as a lead will sell it as a lead.

Also, most of the owners listed properties on these real estate sites like MagicBricks, CommonFloor, 99acres, Makaan, Housing, etc are fake. Scammers will ask you to pay a refundable token amount to share flat location/pics etc and then will block you.

To avoid such scams -

1. You always tell them that you will meet face to face at the flat first.
2. Talk to them on WhatsApp and ask them to share their current location.
3. Ask them to share their government issued ID too (in case you are in different cities)
4. Use common sense. It is very easy to distinguish between genuine owners and fake ones based on the way they talk. Fake ones will always show urgency for token amount and they won't ask your background much.

[458]

All the real estate portals are crazy about taking people's contact details and selling them to builders and brokers as this is how they get revenue.

And OLX is full of spam these days with low quality buyers.

I too am trying to sell my bungalow in Nashik near Sula vineyards

[SanjuInGgn]

This is an interesting thread, so posting something that I have genuinely wondered what happened to.

Around the 2012-2015 timeframe, I had come across a real estate discussion forum, called indianrealestateforum.com
This was, in my opinion, one of the best places to get detailed analysis on not just new project launches, but also some amazing insights into the real estate sector as a whole.

However, post its acquisition by housing.com, the entire discussion forum platform has been stopped.

Now coming to the most important question - for all of you auto buffs - who equally follow the real estate segment - what's your go-to site/platform/forum to get the most detailed insights and analysis in Real Estate?

Leave me your thoughts and we can exchange some notes maybe.

[rajesh1868]

I am looking to get a rented accommodation in Bangalore after about 15 years. Used to depend on a classified newspaper (forgot the name) and these days we have these websites. One key Value added Service that I see in nobroker is ability to pay rent online, rental agreements etc.
Does all house owner support online payment?
Also any feedback on their home furnishing rental program?

[blueberry]

Originally Posted by rajesh1868

Does all house owner support online payment?
Also any feedback on their home furnishing rental program?

Online rent payments are okay with majority of landlords. Especially since the landlords PAN is shared with the tenant.

Home furnishing is something I’d implore you to stay away from all these platforms.
They don’t have in-house capabilities. A few low cost vendors are onboarded as their “special / vetted partners”.
The experience with folks on the ground always goes sour. And the real estate platforms conveniently wash their hands off of it.

[Ritz2010]

Yep same experience here. 99acres folks are behind me to sell their 25k package which reduced to 20k and 16k and further may be in another couple of days !!

They are behind me since it's high value and locality is good. Let me see how much their price goes down.

Is there any regional or sub regional portals? I feel most of these portals are based out of Delhi and have no idea about South especially tier 2 cities.

[dass]

Anyone heard of settlin.in? Not sure how they got my number, but after I put my 2bhk flat in a standalone building near Doddanekundi for sale on magicbricks and nobrokers, they guys reached out. They work on a brokerage model, like they will get the prospective buyers and if the sale happens, you pay 1.8% of the sale value.

Now, its been few months since this happened, they have got few people to visit, however nothing has materialized. However, everytime a new individual from settlin.in calls to verify the property. I have a feeling they have registered brokers who do this, but no way to verify.