Rahul Yadav joins Anuj Puri's realty venture Anarock

Yadav cracked online real estate market by offering images of properties put on rent and sale

Rahul Yadav, founder of online real estate site Housing.com has joined Anarock Property Consultants, floated by Anuj Puri has its chief technology and product officer.

Puri, a former India head of real estate consultancy JLL, acquired the residential brokerage arm from his former employers earlier this year for Rs 461 crore and rebranded it as Anarock, which was formally launched last week.

"The online real estate business is still in its fledgling stage in India and we are taking the lead on boosting it into maturity. So far, the real estate sector has not been able to emulate the success of ecommerce for consumer durables and services. We intend to change that, and Rahul Yadav's experience in harnessing the consumer housing market at via technology will add the key element, " said Puri, chairman of Anarock in a statement.

Yadav arrived in the Indian startup space after he cracked the online real estate market by offering visual images of properties that were put on rent and sale. This led to several investors backing him, including Japanese internet giant Softbank, that invested $ 90 million in the startup in December 2014. But soon things turned sour after Yadav and a spat with investors on how the company was being run. This led to him being ousted from his startup in July 2015.

The investors brought Jason Kothari to run Housing, who cut costs, improved revenue and eventually help sell the company to News Corp owned PropTiger in January 2017 for around $ 70 million.

Yadav's attempt to build a second startup fizzled last year.

"He is the big brains on tech in real estate having proved his credentials with Housing.com," added Puri

Yadav says his latest move will also give him space to build a long term career in the real estate segment.

"I would like to stay in this sector for at least three decades (laughs) and learn as much as possible. Unlike ecommerce this sector does not have the same disruption and there is a huge scope for growth," said Yadav.