For decades, navigating India’s real estate market meant dealing with opaque processes, sky-high brokerage fees, and patchy trust in intermediaries or brokers. But then in 2014 came NoBroker, a tech-driven platform that seeks to eliminate brokers altogether and connect potential tenants with that of home-owners. Co-founded by Saurabh Garg, Akhil Gupta and Amit Agarwal, NoBroker set out to change India's real estate market, and today offers everything: from property listings and rental agreements to legal services, movers, and even society management, all powered by data and AI.

In an industry long plagued by inefficiency and middlemen, NoBroker’s customer-first, no-frills model has stood out and the company is scaling up. In this candid conversation with Fortune India, Saurabh Garg talks about the platform’s origin story, its monetisation model, tech evolution, and the big bets that lie ahead, from primary sales to NRI property management and, eventually, a public listing. Edited excerpts.

Fortune India: NoBroker is one of those rare products that everyone needs at some point in their lives. To start with, can you walk me through the journey of NoBroker? What led to its founding and how has the experience been?

Saurabh Garg: So I was based in Mumbai. Until the age of 26 or 27, I had never dealt with real estate on my own. I lived with my parents, then in a hostel during engineering, then a dorm during my MBA. After that, I joined Unilever, where they provided company housing. I lived in Bandra, everything was sorted.

But in 2007, I quit Unilever to try something on my own. That’s when, for the first time, I had to look for a house independently. My experience with brokers was shocking. The broker showed me horrible properties at first, clearly ones no one else wanted. When I threatened to go elsewhere, he finally showed me a decent place, which I took.

But after 10-10.5 months, he called and said I’d have to pay the brokerage fee again to renew. I was stunned. I had already paid one month's rent as brokerage the first time—about Rs 42,000 or 45,000 in 2007. That really hurt. It felt like he was running an annuity business.

That’s when the idea struck me. I started researching to see if anyone was solving this. A lot of platforms existed, but they all worked with brokers. Nobody was really solving the core problem.

Fortune India: And brokers at the time weren’t necessarily organised businesses...

Saurabh Garg: Exactly. Many listings were fake. You’d see a listing for a Carter Road flat for Rs 40,000, but when you called, it was unavailable. They’d say, "Sir, that one is gone, but I have others for Rs 80,000." There was complete information asymmetry. The broker's job was simply to connect two people and charge a massive fee—like 1% on both sides for buy/sell or one month's rent on an 11-month lease.

So I reached out to Akhil and Amit, my co-founders. Akhil was my junior at IIT, working at Oracle. Amit was from IIM Ahmedabad, working at PwC. All of us had similar horror stories across cities. We bootstrapped for nearly a year, and launched the site on 1st March 2014.

The demand was huge from day one. People loved the idea of not having to pay a broker. NoBroker became the first stop—only if people didn’t find something there would they go elsewhere.

Fortune India: You've clearly solved a massive pain point. What was the customer reaction like in those early years, especially revolving around trust? Real estate transactions are among the biggest decisions in a person’s life.

Saurabh Garg: Yes, but here's the thing—people didn’t really trust brokers either. So we actually benefited from that lack of trust. Also, we used data extensively. We could give users a rent estimate, suggest nearby localities, and offer transparency on pricing.

We focused heavily on keeping the platform genuine. Only real owners and tenants. We used AI and machine learning to clean the listings. That helped build trust.

Also, we made the platform completely free for the first 3-4 years. Word of mouth spread fast. Someone would rent out a property, and they’d tell five friends.

Fortune India: And how have customer expectations evolved over time?

Saurabh Garg: There are a few trends. First, moving houses used to be a big pain. Now, people are more open to moving because the whole process—search, agreement, even packing—has become smoother. Earlier, people would hesitate to shift even after 11 months. Now, they feel it’s manageable.

Second, we realised the real estate journey doesn’t end at finding a home. You need agreements, registration, packers and movers, cleaning, interior designers, legal due diligence, and so on. We started adding these services step-by-step based on customer feedback.

Fortune India: NoBroker has effectively become a one-stop shop for all things real estate. What is driving the company forward?

Saurabh Garg: It is technology. And we use technology to ensure consistent delivery. Even services like packers and movers—which are notorious for unreliability—are handled through a tech layer. You can track the truck, we provide standard packaging materials, and we monitor the process.

Fortune India: Looking ahead, what are the next big challenges and opportunities for NoBroker?

Saurabh Garg: There are two key areas. One is to go deeper in our existing markets. Even in big cities, we probably only cover 15% of the total transaction volume. So there’s a lot more to do.

The second is geographic expansion. We're not in cities like Kolkata or Ahmedabad yet. But the demand is already there. We’ve even had people leave one-star reviews saying, "Please come to our city!"

That said, real estate is very local. So we want to go deep before we go wide. It’s not helpful if we have listings in Delhi’s Defence Colony but the demand is in Bengaluru’s Indiranagar. We need both sides to match for the product to work.

Fortune India: And how do you plan to handle the challenge of localisation when you scale up?

Saurabh Garg: We’ll lean heavily on data and AI to localise. Every city has its nuances, but there’s also a lot of homogeneity. So tech will help us maintain consistency while adapting to local needs.

Also, we’re expanding into primary sales. That’s a newer vertical, but we already sell about 600 developer properties every month. It requires handholding, but it’s a key growth area.

Fortune India: And what about NoBrokerHood?

Saurabh Garg: That’s our society management product. We’re already in 22,000 societies. It has a lot of potential because these are our top users. We’re innovating based on their feedback—like group bookings for amenities and better communication tools. There’s a lot we can do there.

Fortune India: Real estate is typically considered a fragmented and manual sector. How does NoBroker approach this problem differently?

Saurabh Garg: Real estate is quite homogeneous across cities, but each has its nuances. Instead of solving these differences manually, we use data and AI. For example, if someone searches for a property in Bandra, our system might suggest alternatives like Andheri—because it has learned these patterns through data, not human bias. Our tech is built to do what an ideal broker would, but without the subjectivity and without charging intermediation fees. Since this approach has worked across six cities, we believe it can scale to sixty.

Fortune India: NoBroker has a strong presence in certain cities. How has the journey toward monetisation unfolded? Where is the money to be made?

Saurabh Garg: We monetise through three main channels:

Real Estate Services: Listing a property for rent or sale is free. But if users want assistance, they can opt for a plan that includes a phone-based relationship manager who helps with everything—from scheduling visits to completing the transaction—for a fixed fee (e.g., ₹3,000 to ₹10,000).

Builder Properties: When we help sell properties from builders, the builders pay us.

Home Services: We offer services like Packers & Movers, legal help, cleaning, etc., via a managed marketplace. We onboard and train vendors, provide a tech layer, and charge a small fee for transactions.

Financial Services: We earn from banks/NBFCs when users take loans via us, as well as from insurance and rent payment services.

We only started monetising around 2017, about three years after launch. Even today, 95% of users use NoBroker for free. We want to keep it that way—making services accessible, only charging when necessary.

Fortune India: NoBroker has also entered the builder property segment. That’s very different from resale. How has that transition been?

Saurabh Garg: You're right—it's quite different. But we started from a customer-first approach. Around 60–70% of users begin their search with builder properties. Some later switch to resale if they can’t find what they want. Others are agnostic—they care about budget and location, not whether it’s new or resale.

We realised we were ignoring a large base if we didn’t include new projects. So, we built a 75-point checklist to evaluate developers. With resale, what-you-see-is-what-you-get. With new builds, buyers need more assurance. Post-RERA, things have improved, but the trust gap still exists, especially for people burned pre-2016. Our goal is to close that gap.

Fortune India: Proptech has seen many players come and go. Why did others fail, and how did NoBroker avoid those pitfalls?

Saurabh Garg: There are a few reasons behind this:

Misreading the market: Many copied Western models like Zillow without adapting to Indian realities. They focused on listings, but not on solving the actual user pain points.

Over-scaling: Some tried expanding to 50 cities in two years. Real estate doesn’t scale like that—especially not a C2C model like ours. We stayed in just Mumbai and Bangalore for three years to perfect our model.

Impatience and cash burn: Some startups spent $30 million in ads within months. We were frugal. For six years post-launch, we had only raised $20 million.

Customer experience: We focused heavily on making onboarding seamless—whether for a seller or tenant. It’s one of our strongest differentiators.

Fortune India: But as you add more verticals and services, doesn’t that risk complicating the user experience?

Saurabh Garg: Actually, the opposite. Thanks to rich data and AI, we can personalise the app experience. If you're in a renting phase, we show you only rental-relevant features. Once your transaction is complete, we can prompt you to explore legal help, movers, etc. If you're buying, the app changes accordingly.

Even our phone relationship managers are assisted by AI. We’ve built an internal system that audits 100% of calls, ensuring SOPs are followed. We’ve used that data to build chat and voice bots that can manage the entire transaction flow. It’s all about making the journey smoother, not cluttered.

Fortune India: Many startups that hit a certain scale look toward an IPO. What’s NoBroker’s thinking on this?

Saurabh Garg: We don’t have any immediate plans to go public. But long-term, yes—we’ll need to provide an exit to investors, especially those who’ve been with us for 10 years. That would involve a public listing, but it's still a few years away. We haven’t even started the groundwork.

Fortune India: What is the next big challenge or opportunity that excites you?

Saurabh Garg: I’m most excited about the problem we set out to solve—brokerage fees. We saved ₹6,000 crore in brokerage last year, but the total brokerage paid in India annually is ₹1.5–1.8 lakh crore (over $20 billion). That’s massive. We’ve barely scratched the surface.

Another exciting area is NRI property investment. Many NRIs want to buy and manage properties in India seamlessly. We've now launched property management services for NRIs—offering everything from purchase to maintenance—making it a lot easier for them.