Democratising Commercial Real Estate
Name & Designation: Shiv Parekh, Founder and CEO
Company: hBits
Age: 30
Sector: Real Estate
The company envisions democratising access to real estate and infrastructure so that individuals become ultimate owners of these lucrative assets. hBits was incepted in 2019 and is currently based out of Mumbai with offices in Delhi and Bangalore. It is working to bring transparency to the real estate sector by using technology to gather all historical sale and rental data for everybody to access.
“We are an online platform that facilitates fractional ownership of Grade A pre-leased commercial property. It allows investors to choose from numerous properties to invest in while also offering personalised services, both online and offline,” Shiv Parekh, Founder and CEO, hBits explains.
With hBits, customers can own hard assets at low ticket size generating monthly rental income of 8-10 per cent and capital appreciation of 5-10 per cent per annum. There is no lock-in period and the investors can exit or sell their fraction at any point on the hBits platform or offline, with the applicable capital gains tax.
There were primarily a few larger international players that were investing in commercial real estate. “When I spoke to people, they seemed unaware of how lucrative commercial real estate is. It made sense to use technology to open this asset class to reach out to a wider variety of people,” Parekh mentions.
The real estate sector has really evolved and adopted new norms of working. The fractional ownership market in India is witnessing a steady rise as the commercial real estate (CRE) market is estimated to grow 16 per cent in the coming years. “I definitely see a growth opportunity given the demand for fractional property as it alleviates the financial load on a single investor or property owner,” Parekh adds.
While speaking about his experience in the domain till now, Parekh candidly speaks on the challenges. The most complex part was explaining it to the people about how the technology will be used in real estate, what is fractional ownership and much more.
