House designing is now going the electronic way and consumers can get a design

RELATED ARTICLES Banks, Internet companies team up to fight spam No change in EMIs, banks to have more funds No plan to censor internet: Telecom Secretary

for their homes at the click of the mouse.

Purchase and sale of homes over internet is already an established market with at least a dozen nation-wide players operating in this segment and the experts now believe that the fast-growing reach of world-wide-web provides impressive growth opportunity for ancillary sectors like home designing.

National capital-based urban planner REPL (Rudrabhishek Enterprises) has launched the country's first portal for home designing -- ApnaGhar.Co.In that provides eco-friendly commercial and residential designs.

The portal is targeting a customer base of 500 in the next two years. So far, in the last six months over 50 customers have already availed the service.

"The portal helps people understand more about the architectural designing and about their construction budget," REPL Director Pradeep Misra told PTI here.

Misra said that eco-friendly designs are gaining popularity in big metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Eco-friendly designs include facilities like rain water harvesting, roof gardening and use of low energy consumption equipment.

The company, which has a team of a dozen architects, also takes cares of 'vastu shastra' before designing any house, he said, adding, "We are aiming to sell about 500 designs in the next two years."

The real estate sector, worst hit by the global credit squeeze, is recovering at a faster pace and demand for designer houses is gaining momentum in big as well as small cities and towns.

Experts believe that the internet boom has considerably helped the real estate sector with realty portals like Makaan.Com, 99Acres.Com and MagicBricks.Com, providing a much more economical platform for advertising the sale and purchase of houses.

"Now everybody wants designer houses. Currently we are providing at least 100 designs at economical cost. We can also provide designs as per customers demand depending upon the size of the plot," Misra said.