Bengaluru’s renting scene never fails to surprise. Last month, a techie invited bids for renting his 2BHK flat at a gated society in Doddanekkundi along the ORR.
The response was not up to his minimum expectation. So, in early December, he settled on a rent lower than what he expected but higher than the starting bidding amount he had set. “I was coming back to the rental scene after 1.5 years. I had renovated my house with luxury amenities. I did not know what the going market rate was, so I thought it was better for people to see and decide the price for themselves,” he shares. Srikanth was “sort of” inspired by a similar model in the US for selling houses.
He circulated the message on Facebook groups first. This included a PDF and photos of the amenities (wooden laminate flooring, 55-inch TV, robotic vacuum cleaner, dual-door fridge, dishwasher, sensor taps, futon bed in balcony, three WFH corners, water bidets in toilets to reduce the risk of UTIs), and a Google ‘Rental Auction Bid Form’ to fill. He aimed to invite top five bidders of the week for an ‘Open House’, a house visit-cum-meeting, that is.
When Facebook groups did not elicit much response, he turned to the rental websites. “Some were quoting Rs 10,000, which did not do justice to the bells and whistles I had provided. That’s when I set a starting bid amount of Rs 45,000. The enquiries crashed and only people who were seriously considering started approaching,” he says about his overall experience. “I received nasty comments like ‘Is he crazy?’ to ‘He is greedy’. What’s crazy about it? I have built a product and I wanted to see how much the customers were willing to pay,” he explains.
A working professional, who stumbled upon Srikanth’s bidding call while house-hunting, doesn’t mind the experiment. “Every time, I start negotiating the rent with prospective owners, they claim they have other people on the waiting list who are ready to pay more. How do I know they are telling the truth? Isn’t it indirect bidding?” she asks.
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