Anuj Puri launches new housing brokerage firm Trespect; to invest Rs 225 cr in 18 months

Two years after forming his own venture Anarock, real estate veteran Anuj Puri Tuesday launched a new housing brokerage firm Trespect and announced an investment of Rs 225 crore by the end of next year to grow this business. Puri formed housing brokerage Anarock in April 2017 after quitting global property consultant JLL where he served as chairman and country head for 10 years.

He bought the residential brokerage arm of JLL to start his business Anarock Property Consultants, which assists builders in selling their inventories. "We are launching a new firm Trespect, which has been coined from two words trust and respect. Unlike Anarock where we focus on B2B (business to business) by taking an exclusive mandate from developers to market their projects, Trespect will focus on B2C (business to consumer)," Puri told PTI.

To start with, he said Trespect will have offices in eight major offices with about 112 employees who would help customers in buying apartments as per their need and budget. The new venture will focus initially on flats available in primary markets but later expand to secondary market transactions as well.

When asked about the investment to start this business, Puri said Trespect will require more capital investment and manpower than Anarock. "We have earmarked Rs 225 crore for the next 18 months". Trespect will be headed by Sunil Mishra, who has 24 years' experience in business building within the real estate, telecom, Banking, financial services and insurance (BSFI) and online start-ups domains.

Prior to this appointment, Sunil Mishra was COO of IL&FS Township & Urban Assets, Chief Business Officer at online property brokerage PropTiger.com and CEO at Karvy Private Wealth. He also held leadership positions at KPMG Consulting, WorldTel UK and Bharti Airtel. Trespect has also on-boarded Amit Sinha as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this, Sinha was Business Head at PropTiger.com.

"With India on track to become a USD 5 trillion economy and the Indian broking business currently estimated to be worth nearly USD 1.8 billion, there remains a vast untapped potential in the new housing purchase business," Mishra said. The new firm will provide end-to-end services to its customers through a tech-driven approach.

"Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act has brought real estate brokers under its ambit - but there is no minimum qualification, experience or certification for agents. There is a massive opportunity for large organised broking firms like Trespect to address this gap," Mishra said. Meanwhile, Anarock's revenue doubled to Rs 188 crore in 2018-19 fiscal year and the company turned profitable in the second year of operation.

In the housing brokerage business, Anarock and the new firm will compete with the likes of News Corp-backed PropTiger.com, Quikr Realty, Square Yards, 360 Realtors, Investors Clinic and Wealth Clinic in the organised space.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)