Start-up offers entry-level ticket to own small stakes in commercial or residential property. PHOTO: REUTERS
LAHORE: The real estate market in Pakistan has seen tremendous growth in the last two decades and has outperformed its European and American counterparts.
The combined global market size of crowd-funding and real estate is estimated to be around $11 trillion while real estate assets in Pakistan alone are estimated to be worth $700 billion.
Despite immense demand of investment from Pakistan in real estate, the minimum investment required for areas that offer better returns is way too high for most individuals.
NEST, one of the finalists at the Fintech Disrupt Challenge 2016, will be offering an entry-level ticket, as low as Rs50,000 ($477), to own a small stake in a managed commercial/residential property.
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Fintech Disrupt Challenge 2016 was organised by Karandaaz Pakistan and will be facilitating people with shared social demographics and interest in real estate, investing to pool money and purchase properties. Arazi Ventures CEO Umair Sheikh said the team has been working on this project for quite some time but getting past the current regulatory framework has been a major challenge.
“We plan to turn NEST into a robust crowd-funding platform for real estate as soon as we have a green signal from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). “For now, we are only accepting offers from accredited and seasoned investors who understand the risks involved in private investments,” said Sheikh.
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Arazi Ventures, the company behind NEST and Arazi.pk - an online real estate database and brokerage service - has seen immense success since its launch back in 2015.
An alumnus of the LUMS Center for Entrepreneurship, Arazi.pk offers verified real estate listings backed by a team of professional, in-house agents. Arazi.pk was the only startup from Pakistan to exhibit at the first RISE conference in Hong Kong and was also a nominee for the prestigious Red Herring Asia Top 100 Award.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2017.
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