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LeJagah.com – Mumbai’s real estate / property guidance and information portal

“Location, location & sub-location” 

As real estate market place / portal LeJagah.com is guiding property buyers to right place & service providers. It is live since 3-4 months and conceptualized for 1 year now.  

More than 30-40 % people visit property sites for information before buying property which may increase to 60-70 % in coming 10 years. Nobody buys property without visiting it physically as any individual / family / biz house would like to see the place real time.

Our differentiation: With almost all the existing real estate sites the approach is ‘Property > Location’ wherein the user may like the property and may reject it once they visit the property because of location issues. In this approach secondary importance is given on location or sub-location / micro-market and he/she loses a lot of time shortlisting the properties. Also the end-users get incomplete information from this approach.

We believe location & sub-location are important parameters for any property and hence our approach is ‘Location > Property’ as against ‘Property > Location’.

According to the survey done the important parameters for buying property are physical infrastructure (roads, lane, flyover and others), social infrastructure (schools, markets, temples and others), transportation / connectivity (station, bus depot, taxi stand, auto stand & others) than the amenities provided in the premises (basic is acceptable). These amenities could be provided/done after acquiring the property but there is no alternative to sub-location facility.

With our approach we tackle both the aspects viz; location as well as property and hence the users are eligible to take informed decision and save lot of valuable time.

This approach also leads to genuine leads to brokers/agents or other service providers as preliminary ground work is done by the users with ample and relevant information. 

The difference: Unlike other portals we are based right now in Mumbai covering entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region MMR (Mumbai, New Mumbai, Thane and others) in depth.

We are breaking up Mumbai (similar plan for other metros, tier I & tier II cities) in different localities and sub-localities with 20 core (total 80) parameters each relevant to acquiring property for buyers / rentees. The parameters are property rates, end-use / investing scoring, new projects, property agents/brokers details, landmarks/photos, healthcare centres, social & physical infrastructure to name the few.

Example in the following slide: 

Screen shot of (search page) ‘Know Your Location’ of Andheri East with 7 sub-locations as .Station vicinity .Marol Maroshi .J B Nagar .Chakala .Mahakali Caves Road .MIDC & SEEPZ .Sakinaka & around

 

 

We have already covered 125+ sub-locations / micro-markets and intend to cover 400+ of MMR (Mumbai, New Mumbai, Thane & others).

Property listings by agents & builders would start by April/May. 

For example we have done sample property listing at Andheri East, Station vicinity.

Other features: We are also enlisting service providers of real estate like agents/brokers, lawyers, stamp duty/registration agents, loan agents, architects, interior designers, vastu expert and others so the users find everything related to real estate under one roof.

The process of improving the professionalism with agents/brokers is going on with mobile application development for them.

Our competition: We are competing with giants like Magicbricks, 99 acres and others in real estate classifieds sector with lots of consolidation happening recently (Quickr buying commonfloor, Tiger Prop buying makaan & Snapdeal in the process of buying Housing).

Plans: There is a plan to scale-up to other metros, tier I & tier II cities.

Verticals: We are considering using the potential of micro-market information / data to start a vertical like being a consumer guide for particular locality.

We are looking for potential team mates preferably from the same sector.

You may view our website LeJagah.com and post your frank feedback / suggestion / advise. 

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Vinayak (Mumbai)

(Cell: 9322590790 / Email Id: vinayakhanchate69@gmail.com)

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6 Comments

  1. In India, we refer to a landmark as reference for any address, hence, if you are letting one search with a landmark search term, it makes a lot of sense.

    A few suggestion from design perspective:
    if i were you,
    – i would not put my social media icons the very first in the header, and rather add a call to action thing or a link of what i want to promote the most
    – i would start menu items listing right after the logo, more the menu shifts to right, more insignificant it seems
    – i would increase menu item font size, not sure if it’s color or the size of the font, but needs one to make an effort to read
    – upon clicking on service providers link, i am presented with a drop down menu, i’d rather let someone select a kind of provider from the home page with a radio button selection or a direct link, and eliminate drop down menu complete
    – instead of Rentee, i would use word “Owner” as it is simpler term for people to understand

  2. Dear Deeti,

     Thanks for your reply and encouragement.

    Yes i will look into the designing part as well.

    Thanks again for the feedback.

    Vinayak

  3. Hi Vinayak,

    Seems the website needs further work; I tried to search for residential properties in Bandra East – it showed me Rental properties as well. Plus, on the search page, under “List of brokers, agents, builders and sellers” column it shows a list of numbers without any indication who is owner or who is agent. 

    Also, most of the other portals allow you to search properties by Location – then how LeJagah.com is different?

  4. Hi Saikat, 

                    Yes it needs further enhancing…

    Regarding the list of names> they are all agents/brokers in the that sub-locality. We would mentioned the builders, owners in bracket henceforth (or add filter accordingly).

    Our approach is getting the customers to the sub-location first & then exposing them to properties. You get the sub-locality choice right at the ‘Search Page’ with 5 showcase parameters like location map, photos/landmarks. Price details, List of brokers/agents.., & Property for Sale /Rent. This is not possible with other portals.  You can further see the sub-location details independently with the parameters mentioned on the start of the page of sublocality. 

    As per your requirement, Bandra East has 2 sub-localities covered by us viz; BKC & Kala Nagar. You can choose further the sub-locations and define your property requirement or choose from both options (selling / renting out). Each sub-location has all the parameters mentioned on one page with different type of properties (1 BHK, 3 bhk, offices, shops & others). We are coming out with details of the property with photos and other features like other portals (work in progress). 

    Other portal allows to search properties by location (without mention of parameters) & not sub-locations as mentioned in the example. 

    But as you mentioned correctly, we are enhancing our website. 

    Thanking you for your feedback

    Vinayak
  5. Do you think ‘predicting’ property prices scientifically will help people to decide where to invest? Something thats ‘future tense’ than present tense or past tense?

    See this (part fun part fact) piece I wrote – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/real-estate-prices-in-mumbai-

    I am sure all of you have noticed the oft-published ‘real-estate’ price charts that the daily papers publish.

    I have been staring at them for a long time now and have been trying to explain a thesis to my wife Chhavi to justify a real estate decision I made a few months back 🙂

    Today, I decided to ‘Mapify’ that thesis (since real estate sits on a map) and decided to share it with everyone!

    Check out (Click to expand and feel free to download):

    All I have done is juxtaposed the real estate prices of the report on to google maps to represent the data visually:

    Now my THESIS:

    Look at the bottom left of the map:

    Apartments in Cuffe Parade (the southernmost tip of residential Mumbai) are routinely selling for Rs. 88,000-100,000 per square feet. The same rate applies to apartments in a building like Samudra Bhavan at Worli and many iconic buildings in Malabar Hills etc.

    My theory is that the price of real estate in Mumbai gravitates from the south and radiates upwards and sideways in an pulsating fashion (slowing down as it goes farther). See the faint dotted blue arrows.

    As South Mumbai continues to climb, so also other areas go up, in a ratio directly proportionate to their distance from South Mumbai.

    Check the Black Arrow! It also points to a ‘hidden’ logic that the places nearest to SOBO even across the small strait of Ocean (Sanpada in this case) should be higher priced than other places! 

    Now, prices in South Mumbai ARE CHEAP! The ‘iconic’ addresses in Manhattan, New York and in the West End in London sell for 10 lac per sq. feet; so South Mumbai has space to creep vertically upwards, as it has done for the past 3 decades.

    Using my thesis, I have placed a bet on an area directly in the direction of the pulse and I hope that pays out 🙂

    The same could be used by you (at your own risk :))

    Tell me what you think of my thesis, and if you disagree then don’t tell Chhavi :

    Data source: 

  6. Hi Alok, (thanking you & Asha for this platform)

    I would first start with ‘scientific’ approach to real estate…..;-)

    You would agree, in India (not to mention the globe) real estate is the emotional decision whatever said and done. I am talking about people buying real estate for livelihood (biz) & shelter.

    Investment is a different story which you should approach scientifically predicting the future (magical crystal ball). But Alok, believe me, logic seems to go out of window in real estate (RE) investment (I think same goes for stocks). Very few shrewd investors has this dispassionate approach towards RE (because of the sum involved).

    As per your article, the geographical mapping attribute to RE investment is right but not in finer sense. Geographically RE grows or radiates from CBR (Central Biz Region) & spreads according to people needs work & affordability wise. There are examples of a developers predicting future growth in some locality (managing / influencing with developmental plan of the region for own benefits) but taking its own sweet time.

    Again it is not the market per se but people (consumers) deciding the directions of market. Here ‘market’ meaning players of market like brokers, builders and other influencers. They can ride the market to some extent (sometimes for a larger part) but it has to come to fundamental or scientific rates driven by consumers or end-users (cyclical in nature). RE as such is unorganized sector. Smart investor would know this dynamics of market & invest accordingly.

    But the fundamental question still remain which is ‘Do this investment fit with my plan / portfolio / goal?’ & not ‘should I invest at Malabar Hill or Sanpada?’ You invest according to your plan and not according to the market condition. 

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