Housing.com acquires online real estate forum IREF for INR 8 crores

After their recent re-branding and new logo, Housing has acquired Indian Real Estate Forum (IREF) forum for INR 8 crores (source). This move is to improve the availability and accessibility of independent information for home buyers.IREF, a real-estate community was founded as an independent real estate forum, where registered users (home buyers as well as experts) can exchange information, experiences and views on real estate projects, builders and miscellaneous real estate related topics. With 1.5 lakh subscribers, IREF claim to have already helped millions of home buyers to find the right information to make an informed home buying decision.

The two companies believe that independent information is scarce and seldom presented in an easily accessible way which causes home buyers a lot of uncertainty and stress. Since its foundation IREF has aimed to make significant difference to home buyers by providing them with an independent real estate information platform. IREF has the platform and the community to enrich the data with experiences and opinions. Together with Housing who has the knowledge, data and the technology they hope to make the home buying experience transparent and unique.

Post the partnership, IREF will continue to stay independent of Housing and will be a neutral separate enterprise. IREF has its own vision and mission: to empower and protect buyers. The current administrators of the forum will continue their role with the forum to ensure its independence.

According to Ravish Naresh, CEO IREF and Co-Founder, Housing, “At Housing we are dedicated to make the experience of finding a perfect home easy and fun. Since we know limited access to reliable information hampers the experience of buying a home, we want to eradicate this. Together with the community of IREF we believe that we can bridge the information gap." 

Rohini Dutt, Founder IREF, added, “Our ambition has always been to increase transparency and help home buyers to make better decisions. Housing’s involvement makes it possible to make a huge leap forward in achieving that goal. ”

In the near future IREF members and users will get easy access to lots of additional data to help their decision-making. The availability, accessibility and transparency of information will dramatically increase. A number of functionalities will be added that will make it easy for members and users to check facts and get the bigger picture behind available properties.

IREF also plans to launch a mobile app in the future, which will include improved functionality and user interface. This in turn aims to make it easier for users to find information and share questions and experiences via web as well as mobile.

Related read: Three co-founders quit Housing.com: a legal lesson for entrepreneurs