Housr, a full stack co-living platform for young professionals and students, is in talks to raise $20 million in Series B by the next quarter and triple its capacity by three times to 10,000 beds across cities, a top executive told BusinessLine .

At a time when the co-living industry occupancy rates pan India hovers between 30-35 per cent, Housr, which currently has 3,500 beds in 16 properties across Delhi NCR, Pune and Hyderabad, plans to foray into new markets – Bengaluru, Jaipur and Lucknow; while expanding in its existing markets.

“Our occupancy rate before the second Covid wave (Jan-Mar) was 92 per cent, which fell in May-June to 45 per cent. From August 1, we will be back to 90 per cent plus occupany. From March 2020, when the pandemic broke out to now, we have grown our portfolio from five to 25 properties, of which 16 are already live and the rest will go live in Gurugram, Hyderabad and Pune in August and Bengaluru in September. We plan to enter Jaipur and Lucknow next quarter,” said Deepak Anand, Co-Founder, Housr.

Amenities

When asked how Housr was in expansion mode while the rest of the industry is in doldrums, Anand said, “Our key differentiator is that we take on Grade A properties and run it as full-stack operators – providing fully furnished rooms with Wi-Fi, DTH, meals, laundry, security plus a layer of community life built on top of it with online and offline events for our residents.”

“Our rooms, priced between ₹12,000 to ₹25,000 per month depending on the location and configuration, have the look and feel of a long stay 4 Star hotel. Eighty per cent of our residents are young working professionals making between ₹50,000 – ₹1,50,000/month; 20 per cent are MBA students from premier institutes like IIFT, ISB and MTI. Therefore, my average realisation for a single room is ₹22,000 – ₹23,000 unlike other players who get ₹5,000 to ₹6,000 for a single room,” added Anand.

In the next six months Housr plans to add 15 more properties in Delhi NCR, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. The start-up also has corporate tie-ups in place and has worked with companies like Vistara, BMW and Accenture among others.

Founded in 2018 by real-estate veterans, Deepak Anand and Kalpesh Mehta, Housr leases full residential towers, studio apartments and serviced apartments from developers on a long-term lease and plugs the product gap by catering to the demand for affordable and safe accommodation for working professionals in key corporate hubs of India. The start-up is backed by Adar Poonawalla through Rising Sun Holdings, Pirojsha Godrej, Abhishek Lodha and Harsh Patodia and has raised around $10 million to date in Angel and Series A funding.

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