Real Estate is a backbone to every country’s economy. Just in a month between Nov-Dec 2016, 8% of Pakistan’s total population invested in Real Estate. This number can easily be multiplied by addressing the core issues of the real estate industry and there’s a huge need for automation and innovation in this sector. To address problems of Real Estate, Competitor Commission of Pakistan held an open hearing in April 2018. In this open hearing, many major issues of the real estate industry were highlighted. A company with the name “Seerab” came up as a solution to many problems of the real estate sector through their innovative idea “Seerab Maps”. Seerab was founded in 2016 as a company specialized in application, integration, visualization and training in Geo spatial technologies to develop Geo spatial solutions for people. Seerab’s “Seerab Maps” has recently won “Pasha ICT Awards 2018” as the best innovative solution for Real Estate on 7th Sep 2018. The ceremony that held at Serena hotel was graced by IT& Technology Minister Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddique. The award is a big achievement for Seerab as Pasha ICT Awards is the oldest ICT Associations in Pakistan. So we decided to talk with the founders of Seerab Maps about their journey and future plans.
House is a very basic necessity of every individual. Every one of us once in our life at least goes through the process of buying/selling of property which is really lengthy and tiring. The same pain founders of Seerab Maps faced back in 2008 when they invested in a plot in a developing society. While sharing their experience with us, they explained:
” We wanted to purchase a plot in a society. For this, we contacted many Real Estate Agents and finally, we were convinced to visit housing societies. It was a long hot day and from Islamabad, we started and covered almost 150 Kilometers to find a suitable housing society to invest. After finalizing the housing society, Real Estate agent took us to show the plot we were going to own. It was a hilly area, with available technology at that time we tried to locate the exact location but failed. We made an investment in that plot and after the development of society, it proved as a bad investment due to plot in depression. As they say, in every experience you earn or learn but we learned in a hard way. So, when in 2016 we started Seerab and decided to address this problem and as a result, Seerab Maps was born.”
In this whole conversation, the major highlight was that the Real Estate agent himself was unable to relate the housing society map to the land and visualize its development. The amount of time, money, energy and resources used to make one investment shows that how tiring it is for Real Estate agents to repeat the same process many times in a single day. After developing the prototype of Seerab Maps, founders tested it with their friends living in Pakistan and who frequently invest in property blindly without knowing the location and their response was tremendous. Later, they widened the testing to overseas friends and finally with Real Estate Agents. Initially, the idea of sharing application with Real Estate Agents was highly discouraged believing that Real Estate agents intentionally cheat their clients to make more profits but, founders recalling their experience with Real Estate agent felt it is a tool to basically equip Real Estate agents to perform their tasks well and be knowledgeable of what they are selling. The testing with Real Estate Agents went very well with and founders received an overwhelming response. According to founders one of our user feedbacks by a Real Estate Agent is:
“Seerab Maps give us detailed insights about the development of society. While sitting at the office, we show all the possible locations to clients they can be interested to invest and then take them for a visit where using Geolocation feature we find the exact location of a plot without wasting any time. Seerab Maps is helping us in winning our client’s trust and they know what we are selling where exactly exists. It helps our clients in quick decision making and we are closing sales more quickly. We are ahead of those working in this society for many years.”
Seerab Maps is not only impacting the Real Estate industry but also common buyers. Seerab Maps currently serving Users residing in 70+ countries. Empowering end buyer to understand the future of housing societies and investment opportunities. Seerab Maps is an innovative solution that helps users to analyze, identify, locate, visualize and verify the location of housing society even plots using cell phone/laptop while sitting at home or office at any time. Seerab Maps have covered major and many other housing societies of 10 major cities (Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Sialkot, Sahiwal, Sargodha, and Rawalpindi).
Visit: www.seerab.com/maps and try these maps and find out uniqueness and ease of Seerab Maps yourself.
Like many other startups, Seerab Maps is also facing many challenges mainly creating awareness of the service to the masses. Their main aim is to facilitate the end buyer and empower him to decide wisely. Usually, when Real Estate agents deal with a local client it takes 7-10 days to lock the deal and in case of overseas, it depends upon their visit to Pakistan or availability of their relative to visit and verify location. With the use of Seerab Maps, buyers can analyze anytime on their own and make decisions without the involvement of a third party. Founders of Seerab Maps shared a story of another real estate agent that how he was introduced to Seerab Maps.
“One of our clients from KSA asked for the visit of the location of plots, we as routine took him to the area where those plots would be. We were not confirmed about the exact location of plots so he introduced us to Seerab Maps and took us to the exact location of the plot he was interested in. Since then we are using Seerab Maps and just today I visited 10 plots location in almost no time.”
Seerab aims to bring innovation through Geographical Information System (GIS) in every field and focus on training and counseling of graduates in GIS in Pakistan to use this cutting-edge technology for the betterment of people of Pakistan. Other than GIS, Seerab offers mentoring and Consultancy Services in technologies like Computer Aided Design (CAD), Building Information Modeling (BIM), Spatial Data Science (SDS), Data and Geo Analytic and Interactive Data Visualization. Founding CEO Farhat Bashir and Founding CTO Zulkifil Ahmad believe in abilities of Pakistani youth and take responsibility to guide them to pursue their career in GIS. Their only message to Pakistani youth that’s also the foundation of Seerab is Allama Iqbal’s couplet:
