OYO which is known as budget hotel chain is all set to enter long-term housing rental segment named it as Oyo Living, told TOI that Oyo is working with independent owners and large builders to lease out properties for long-term housing needs of young professionals.
The division has onboarded about 36 properties
with 2,000 beds, and the plan is to scale it to about 50,000 beds in the next one year across the top 10 metros.
with 2,000 beds, and the plan is to scale it to about 50,000 beds in the next one year across the top 10 metros.
Oyo will seek to also solve typical pain-points like steep deposits, advance rents, and maintenance of properties in co-ordination with landlords, and not restrict itself to discovery and booking services, which is what some of the others in the space do.
A significant part of the fresh funds raised by Oyo will be allocated for this new business. Oyo Living is being rolled out initially in Noida, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, and Pune. To nudge property owners to lease their properties, Oyo is assuring guaranteed rental yields.
“This is a big opportunity for us and we have done several pilots over the last six months that have shown good opportunity in this space. We are targeting young professionals who are typically in their first or second job and migrating into new cities. While we are leveraging Oyo’s existing expertise from the hospitality business, about 85 people are working solely on the housing rental business,” Kavikrut said. The company is making an effort to look for stand-alone properties and full towers from developers for Oyo Living, instead of going for a few flats in several buildings in a housing complex, Kavikrut added.
Gurgaon-based Oyo, valued at $5 billion at the last round of funding, has about 213,000 hotel rooms across India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, UK, UAE and Indonesia. India has about 125,000 of these, and much of the rest is in China, where it is adding about 30,000 rooms a month. The hotel room business involves short stays of a few days. The new business will be different, as it will involve long stays.
