At a time when owning real estate, for many, has become a difficult proposition RealX, a Pune-based fintech startup has come up with a solution offering fractional ownership in commercial properties on a digital platform. For example, any person can now pump in as low as Rs one lakh and invest in a property worth a few crore rupees.

The startup has already closed its first transaction, a commercial shop, in Satara where about 20 investors have have together pumped in about Rs 10 lakh for a 150 square feet shop. The startup has been talking to various real estate players in Maharashtra at present and is hopeful of carrying out transactions worth Rs 100 crore in the first year itself on its platform.

Manish Kumar, founder of RealX, said that the company, which is an end-to-end online platform, allows sellers and agents to post property and registered buyers can commit their co-ownership share in the respective properties.

A transaction is considered successful when it generates the total commitments required for the full sale after which it is executed in favour of the co-owners whose collective interest is represented by a principal custodian, which in this case is a registered Nidhi company.

"We are just like any other e-commerce company that allows consumers to transact online. The only difference is that we allow people to collectively invest in properties. We wanted to create an option for people to participate in high value, high yield property transactions at lower ticket sizes and without the usual running around," Kumar said.

After the sale deed is registered, co-owners are issued equitable fractional ownership digital certificates called FRAX. This part of the transaction is managed by REGKO, another fintech startup that provides asset registry solutions based on distributed ledger technology, commonly known as Blockchain.

This technology has inherent benefits of immutability (tamper proof) and verifiability of records, he added.

On regulations part, Kumar said that the startup is fully complied with SEBI, RBI and ReRa since they deal with investments, payments and real estate all at the same time.

"We would love to be regulated by RBI going forward. In fact we are also eager to apply for the P2P lending licence. Unfortunately, the guidelines are not out yet," he said, adding that this space, at present is unregulated just like the e-commerce sector.

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