Some time in 2012, when Sonia Vaid got tired of the endless wait for clients at her property broking office in Gurgaon, she enrolled for a management programme. The timing was perfect as just around that the meltdown in residential property sales had started.

Already familiar with interior designing, and armed with an MBA, she set up GurgaonScoop Interiors in 2015 to jazz up homes instead of broking deals for them.

“There was so much uncertainty in the residential property market that I preferred to switch careers,” says Vaid, who gets four-five interior designing assignments every month now.

Not too far away, Sanjay Sharma, Managing Director of real estate brokerage firm QuBrex, has found a new source of income. With a background in engineering, Sharma now helps property buyers compare developers’ promise with the reality and then guides them to file petitions or cases before the NationalConsumer Dispute Redressal Commission, the National Green Tribunal and even in High Ccourts.

Sharma and Vaid are not alone. As residential property sales nosedive and inventory piles up, real estate brokers are looking at alternative sources of revenues. Their woes have been compounded by no-broker property sites such as grabhouse.com and nobroker.in.

“There is a lot of competition because the Internet has given direct access to buyers. Combined with the gloomy market scenario, it has taken a toll on real estate brokers. Most of us are looking at alternate businesses,” says Anil Ahuja, owner of Pune-based Ahuja Realtors and also the Secretary of Estate Agents Association of Pune.

He is now focussing on property management, which involves maintaining properties for owners who do not live in the same city. From getting them tenants to paying municipal taxes, Ahuja Realtors does it all for a fee.

End-user driven

Pankaj Kapoor, Managing Director of real estate consultancy Liases Foras, says since the market is now end-user driven and not investor-driven, smaller brokers may be forced to close shop. “They were mushrooms that surfaced during the rainy season and now the rains are over,” he says.

What Kapoor is referring to as mushrooms are smaller brokers who jumped into the market to make quick money, with 1 or 2 per cent commission, even if it meant having just one deal.

“To sustain today, a broker should have knowledge of the market as well as technology, good contacts with the developers and the ability to sell his product. He needs to be system-oriented,” says Chandrasekar Kaliyamurthy, owner of Chennai-based Rajam Property Management.

But this doesn’t mean the market does not require brokers at all. As Ahuja puts it, property broking is now a specialised service.

“Those who want to seek expert medical advice go to the doctor unlike others who just pop a pill without consultation.

“The market now is for brokers who are well connected and understand regulation as well as taxation,” he adds.

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