Bhawana Khetan on Building Address Advisors Into India’s First Global Real Estate Consultancy
📝Interviews
In this insightful conversation with Bhawana Khetan, Co-founder of Address Advisors, a leader in Indian real estate consultancy, she shares insights into the company’s vision of becoming the first Indian property consultant with a global presence. Khetan discusses the company's journey over eight years, key milestones, team expansion, and service diversification. She also highlights the role of technology, emerging trends like co-working spaces, and the growing importance of warehousing in India’s economy. Khetan’s mantra, "Nothing is Impossible," drives Address Advisors as they work towards global expansion while keeping transparency and client focus at the core of their business.
StartupTalky: What inspired you to start Address Advisors, and how has the company and its vision evolved over the years?
Ms. Khetan: Our vision is to be the first Indian Property Consultant which is global and we are on the path to achieve the same. Real Estate has always been our passion and that coupled with entrepreneurial spirit inspired the first steps and initial phase. The robust nature of the Indian Real estate scenario over the last decade and the fact that real estate will be a key component as India is poised forward in the next few decades has only nurtured the initial belief and also guided the vision further.
As I said, our vision has always been to take India to a global platform. We have never had an Indian property consultancy that has a global presence and we wanted to disrupt that. We have always strived to be different in our services-oriented behavior and be a transparent real estate consultancy.
Our vision has always been single-focused, however, how the path to get there has definitely evolved. We always work to discover new business opportunities and focus on key verticals. Having said that, our core values remain the same, and how we do business has consistently evolved.
StartupTalky: Address Advisors recently completed 8 years in the industry; how has your team contributed to it, and what key milestones have you achieved in this journey?
Ms. Khetan: We follow the principle of ‘each one teaches one’. Nurturing, and guiding growth have been a foundational principle for us. All the growth, expansion, and diversification we have accomplished has been the confidence that comes to me from our team. Our team has always been our source of existence, we are a people’s company and teamwork is one of our value pillars that we believe in. We have many key milestones, one being strong trust received from our clients who give us repeat business.
It all started with two of us - Sunny and me but today we have 170+ employees. It started with commercial leasing and today we have expanded to warehouse / industrial leasing, land transactions, and residential verticals.
Avantika Bhardwaj
StartupTalky: How does Address Advisors address a diverse range of real estate needs—commercial, residential, industrial, and hospitality?
Ms. Khetan: We are able to achieve a wide range of services with our specialised team members. Residential is a B2C vertical, commercial office leasing and warehousing is B2B, so the kind of skill sets required are very different. We focus on evolving learning protocols and advocating our core values - ethics, integrity, and transparency.
Having started with the commercial real estate vertical we grew exponentially with the startup boom and continue to serve an elite list of clientele from the start-up space. With GST, growth of E-commerce, and global China +1 strategies we sensed a big wave of demand in the Industrial and warehousing space and set up the desk soon after the CRE division.
When the world wrote off real estate during the COVID we saw opportunities in the residential sector with growing demand for bigger homes on account of work from home. In summary, it is a combination of our core values coupled with sharp business acumen that has contributed to our success in each of the business verticals.
StartupTalky: What role do emerging real estate trends, such as shared spaces and coworking hubs, play in shaping your company’s services?
Ms. Khetan: The startup scenario in India in general and Bengaluru, in particular, was a game-changer as far as commercial real estate is concerned. Flexibility, non-formal environment, set-ups inspiring collaboration started taking center stage. Shared spaces and co-working hubs came across as the perfect recipe for the occasion. These spaces help us cater to the growing needs of millennials and Gen-Z work culture.
As businesses and individuals we have to be very agile and adaptive to any business trend or environment we are exposed to and managed office space was one such business trend that emerged in the real estate space in the last three years. We understand the business and client needs, and giving them a solution that suits their needs has been an important trend for us.
StartupTalky: With operations across various cities like Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad, how do you tailor your services to meet the specific real estate demands of each market?
Ms. Khetan: The myth that Pune is Automobile, Bengaluru is Software, Hyderabad is Pharmaceutical is fading away. With infrastructure development, telecommunication, and central tax planning, each city now boasts a wide range of industries and some even overlap. Organisations and corporations now have a footprint in multiple cities which has also resulted in breaking real estate stereotypes. We concentrate on absolute client requirements and are not seeing trends based on geographies dominate any longer.
Muskaan Kapoor
StartupTalky: How has technology impacted the real estate sector, particularly regarding client engagement and operations?
Ms. Khetan: Technology is creating a multifaceted impact on the Real Estate Sector. It is making information segregation and customisation for products like tech parks or residential homes, a lot easier and faster. With a click of a button, one can create and deliver required data points to unique customers, thus making the whole process transparent and agile.
It starts at the acquisition stage, where a property developer or consultant can collect detailed specific requirements from prospective customers without having to meet in person. Next comes the shortlisting of products based on customer requirements and eligibility. There are specialised CRM tools that review and analyse multiple projects/products and recommend the best possible ones based on clients' financials as well as lifestyles. Last but the most impactful is the operational part where the entire process of pre-sale, sale, and after-sale documentation is done largely digitally and within no time.
The entire cycle of digital marketing, client acquisition, engagement, information dissipation, shortlisting of products, financing, documentation, and deal closure can happen in a matter of a few days. Hence we call ourselves an end-to-end platform.
StartupTalky: What are the main challenges facing the Indian real estate industry today, and how do Address Advisors respond to these challenges?
Ms. Khetan: The Indian Real estate sector has a notorious image, lack of transparency, and statutory complexities to name a few. Each situation or transaction is unique in its own way and so are the challenges associated with it. However, having a very strong core in our ethos and culture has helped us overcome challenges; some easy, some difficult and some failed. The strong ethos and culture I refer to are basic in nature but require discipline to be upheld. Integrity, professionalism, emphasis on learning and development, and perseverance are key to us.
StartupTalky: How important are warehousing, industrial, and logistics real estate in India’s economy, and what steps are Address Advisors taking to engage with this segment?
Ms. Khetan: Warehousing/Logistics and Industrial are two different large asset classes in themselves which are essentially clubbed together due to the apparent similarities in their buildings. Warehousing and Logistics form the backbone of any distribution network whether B2C or B2B. With India banking on its internal consumption to leap into the league of largest economies in the world, warehousing, and logistics will play a crucial role in connecting businesses to end users.
We currently serve an elite list of clients for their warehousing/logistics requirements, and this was possible through focused business development and a focused mapping of the market. Also, having teams seamlessly coordinating across different cities has given us an edge in serving the same client in different geographies.
India's real estate market is expected to reach USD 1 trillion by 2030. The logistics sector alone contributes significantly to India’s GDP, estimated at around 12-14% (including warehousing and industrial components). Major e-commerce and quick commerce players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Zepto depend on modern warehousing and distribution facilities to efficiently store, sort, and deliver products to customers. This makes warehousing and distribution networks very critical.
To handle the surge in demand, India needs a growing network of state-of-the-art warehouses strategically located in urban and rural areas, connected to major transportation hubs. The increase in demand for warehouses for e-commerce fulfillment is one of the key drivers of growth in India’s logistics and warehousing market.
Sunita Singh
StartupTalky: In a competitive market, what makes Address Advisors stand out from other real estate consultants and firms?
Ms. Khetan: We have always believed in building strong client and employee relationships, with client retention as one of our biggest strengths. In addition to this, the core principle to consistently improve (our market knowledge/business acumen/process) has always been a point of appreciation from clients. At Address Advisors, we’ve focused on building the brand through modern channels utilizing social media, and creating relevant content to educate our customers.
StartupTalky: What is your business model, and how does it highlight the growth of Address Advisors?
Ms. Khetan: We operate as a brokerage house across all real estate divisions, building name recall throughout every vertical starting from Corporate real estate, Warehousing land & Industrial to Residential real estate. Beyond the brokerage house, we also operate under different brand names to offer design & build, facility management, and even underwrite properties. To share perspective on our growth trajectory, we are a bootstrapped firm expanding to multiple cities and expanding our team in multiple cities, while taking pride in double-digit CAGR across the 8 years since our inception.
StartupTalky: How have recent events like the Property Expo—Property Buffet—contributed to Address Advisors' growth and client engagement, and what feedback have you received from attendees?
Ms. Khetan: The biggest challenge for any real estate buyer is the complexity of the product selection process. There are multiple real estate developers, having a variety of products in all the possible micro markets in a typical metro city. It is a daunting task to collect, assimilate and analyse all the information, then visit the property sites and interact with the sales team of multiple developer companies. We at
Address Advisors decided to solve this and thus started doing a property expo where we invited all the key developers in Bengaluru, and provided them the opportunity to showcase all the products and projects in one place. The idea got tremendous traction and we were overwhelmed with the response. We were able to cater to a large customer base of more than 2700 just in 2 days. The customers were very happy to get all the information and interaction under one roof resulting in business for us.
We also got good and diversified feedback from customers which we are in the process of implementing. Overall it was a great experience and we are looking forward to and have started prepping for the next expo.
StartupTalky: How does your belief that ‘Nothing is Impossible,’ shape your leadership and influence projects at Address Advisors?
Ms. Khetan: As a founder, I truly believe in "Nothing is Impossible," it’s more than just a statement for me. It’s this growth mindset that shapes everything we do as a company. It represents our unwavering belief and commitment that we are capable of achieving extraordinary things.
In today’s real estate business scenario, the challenges we face are often complex in nature and hence it becomes even more critical to recall innovation, resilience, and critical thinking. This vision pushes us to think relentlessly about cultivating a growth mindset, inspiring us to tap into our full potential, deliver exceptional value to our customers, and break through our own boundaries.
Our leadership lies within our people, with this vision at the forefront of our strategy, aligning every aspect of our business to this. We constantly put ourselves in a position to achieve great deals — and that’s what sets us apart.
StartupTalky: Looking ahead, what are your future goals for Address Advisors, and how do you plan to expand the company’s reach and services over the next 5 years?
Ms. Khetan: The next 5 years are absolutely critical when our vision comes to success. Along with building strong teams across the country, we will expand beyond boundaries to offer our services globally by establishing in various markets across South Asia, the Middle East, and North America. We aspire to set a benchmark and establish Address Advisors, the first Indian property consultant that is global. We also intend to expand in different verticals from facility management, project management, to consulting and thereby becoming a one-stop solution for all our clients.
Damini Bhandary
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