2. Real estate brokers

They assist property owners, businesses and investors buy and sell all above four types of properties. Brokers are of two kinds who work for seller and buyers or for both.

Seller’s brokers:

They help find buyers through their professional contacts. Brokers’ tasks include:

• Find a buyer for their land • Price their land competitively and sell their land within a specific time frame:Using comparative listings of recently sold properties, they can help you spruce up your property so it will look its best to customers. • Negotiate and deal with buyers: They assist in negotiations with the buyer, helping you get the highest price possible. • Help with paperwork, inspections and preparing for settlement.

Buyer’s brokers:

2.1 Land brokerage:

It is a complex and multi-faceted niche in the business of real estate. Unlike most improved property, land value analysis is complicated by the multitude of uses to which a given tract might be put. The land broker will have knowledge about local land ordinances, zoning and environmental issues. Land brokerage is a highly specialized niche in the real estate business.

There are 4 types of land transactions:

• Farm lands. • Undeveloped tracts of land. • Land in transition & early development stages. • Plots.

“The Indian Real Estate Brokerage market is unorganised, fragmented; while there are no published figures, we estimate that there are ~2,00,000 brokers across the top 10 cities of the country”, says Times Of India.

They provide above similar services for the property purchaser/ buyer. They know the local market. That means they can find a property that meets your most important criteria. They also compare prices which allows them to guide you to areas that are affordable. Buyers’ agents negotiate for you, pointing out reasons why the seller should accept a lower price. They help with the legalities of the process, including title search, inspection and financing.

It is a large market with the commissions earned by brokers estimated to be in the range of ~Rs. 14,000cr a year. Brokers operate in all segments of the property market cutting across new projects, resale, rentals, commercial, paying guests, plots, etc. Before there had been no registration or special qualifications needed for anyone to become a broker, so it was common to see new brokers springing up; while a large number of brokers in the market are 1st generation entrepreneurs, there is a sizeable chunk of brokers who have been in business for several decades.

2.2 RERA:

But now, under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 (RERA), which came into force on 1st May, all property brokers must register with regulators in their states. The law has also made them liable for any misinformation about the projects they sell or in case of default by developers they represent. They will have to pay a fine of up to 5% of the total property cost if they fail to comply with rules. In current scenario, this act become so dumb and not strictly implemented across india. While brokers offer following services such as: finding, advice, matchmaking & logistics, now technology came to competition in offering listing services about properties available. Buyers can simply search using smartphone apps such as housing, magicbricks, 99 acres etc. Even some offers brokerage services which are agents for builders. But, the majority of individual brokers who had extensive knowledge over hyper local information still act in ground level.