Bangalore: Philadelphia headquartered Surf & Fish Internet solutions has appointed PerceptKnorigin, the digital arm of Percept Holdings, as its online agency to promote its website that focuses on the real estate domain, nobrokerage.in.

The website connects property owners, buyers and tenants directly, eliminating payment of brokerage in real estate services.

The site's service model is the exact opposite of the prevalant norms of India's fragmented and unorganised real estate broking business. In its prevailant form, the propery broking business allows an 'agent' to charge a brokerage or commission of two per cent of the transaction value in case of a sale of real estate, or one month of rent as commission from tenants. Percentages and payment terms vary on account of the market being largely unorganised.

Instead, the site allows users to post and to subscribe to it for a nominal fee of Rs10 per day. A pure-play customer portal, the website does not encourage brokers to post and subscribe.

Campaign Theme
"Direct-Connect" will be theme of the campaign and online search, display and e-virals would be the key channels for its promotion strategy.

The target group for the campaigns is made up of the of internet savvy users, non - resident Indians (NRIs), people living in Indian metros and upcoming two tier cities.

Viraj Malik, managing director of PerceptKnorigin said, ''PerceptKnorigin will be working on on-line communication strategy for www.nobrokerage.in to increase its brand awareness and enhance the conversion ratio. We are excited with the prospects, as the website offers significant value-add to the users especially in the real-estate industry where market is quite fragmented and unorganized. We expect the website to garner significant market-share shortly''.

The terms and conditions of the website preclude payment of any brokerage.

Sudarshan, User Experience Officer (UEO) of Surf & Fish Internet Solutions says that according to consumer research estimates, a significant percentage of users don't really like to pay hefty brokerages. The website precisely addresses this need and helps both property owners, buyers and tenants save a lot of money.

Parul Srivastava, who manages the sales and marketing for Surf & Fish Internet Solutions said,"The business model is compelling. Posting and  subscription model has been chosen to bring seriousness to deal-making. Real owners look for real buyers/tenants and they are willing to pay nominal fee for access to information, as opposed to paying hefty brokerage. True success of the website lies in helping users acquire, sell or rent properties for no brokerage".

The firm says that the developer and builder community has evinced interest on the portal, since it gets direct customer traffic and reduces their brokerage cost as well.

Besides advertisements from Tata Housing, Gera Developers, Rustomji, Maytas, Preeti Developers etc, the company is planning to expand its reach to tier-one developer segment such as DLF, Nitesh Estates etc.