01 Mar 2026 by Radhika P Nair,
Chennai: Krishnamohan Narayan doesn’t shy away from taking calculated risks. When India and the world were hunkering down indoors during the covid pandemic, the former managing director of the Indian arm of German chemical major BASF was standing on an empty plot of land in Goa’s Vagator locality. He had just finalized a ₹5.2 crore purchase of a three-bedroom pool holiday villa after a short meeting with the founders of luxury real estate company Isprava.
“The idea was clear from the beginning,” said Narayan, 54, who returned to India in 2019 after spending around two decades abroad. “I wanted to stay there when I had time, but the rest of the year I wanted it let out.”
Narayan took possession in March 2023 and listed shortly thereafter on Lohono Stays, Isprava’s hospitality arm. Since then, occupancy has hovered between 60% and 70%, with tariffs at around ₹30,000 a night. Narayan visits two or three times a year, typically when his children travel from the UK. The rest of the time, bookings, pricing, housekeeping and repairs are handled by Lohono.
The arrangement works well for Narayan. He was looking for a getaway that did not demand his active supervision, and would generate income that would offset holding costs rather than serve as a primary revenue stream. He is among thousands of holiday home owners across India who are relying on such full-service platforms to maintain and let out their villas.
Holiday home, reimagined
According to The Indian Second Home Market Outlook 2025, published by Axon Developers and 360 Realtors, the market has grown from $1.39 billion in 2021 to an estimated $3.2 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $4.1 billion in 2026. Rising disposable incomes, improved highways and remote work flexibility have channelled affluent buyers towards leisure corridors such as Alibag, Karjat, Lonavala, Himachal Pradesh’s hill towns and Goa’s coastal belt.
But managing this distant asset is not easy.
“The homeowners enjoy the holiday home for the first one or two years or the honeymoon phase. Generally, what happens is that this aspirational home becomes an expense. It becomes a white elephant for a lot of homeowners,” explained Amit Damani, co-founder of StayVista, a hospitality brand into vacation rentals.
“What has changed over the years is the intent,” said Amit Goyal, managing director of India Sotheby’s International Realty. He notes that over 20% of affluent buyers are looking to invest in holiday homes in fiscal year 2027 (FY27)—a number that has remained steady over the past three years. “Earlier, these homes were largely discretionary lifestyle purchases. Today, buyers evaluate them as hybrid assets that combine personal enjoyment with steady income potential.” Rental yields for villas in holiday destinations hover in the 4-6% range. Residential rental yields range between 1% and 3%.
At the same time, demand for private villas has strengthened among travellers. Isprava and Lohono Stays’ co-founder Nibhrant Shah says Indians have always travelled in groups, be it family or college friends. He says covid was the turning point. “Now, if you’re going as a group, you are more likely to come to a villa like ours,” he said.
Lakshmi Iyer, a frequent SaffronStays guest and group president of investments and chief executive officer (CEO) at Bajaj Alternate Investment Management,, has booked villas in Lonavala, Alibag and Karjat for milestone birthdays, extended family gatherings and team huddles. She draws a clear distinction between hotels and managed villas.
“At a five-star, there is nothing called bespoke,” said Iyer, adding that having an entire luxurious property exclusively for one’s group, with staff who can arrange cakes, décor or even a late-night barbeque at short notice, defines the difference.
The category itself is gaining structural weight. Virendra Jain, co-founder and CEO of travel advisory VIDEC, estimates the organized alternative accommodation market at approximately $1.8 billion in gross booking value in FY24. VIDEC projects alternate accommodation to account for around 16% of India’s $21 billion lodging market this fiscal year, up from 11% in FY24.
Hotel demand is also outpacing supply. A Booking.com report estimates hotel demand in India will grow at 10.5% annually till 2027, compared with supply growth of about 8%. Online travel agencies (OTAs) are increasing their focus on alternative accommodation, but as MakeMyTrip CEO Rajesh Magow clarified in a 2025 conversation with Mint, they will only distribute such inventory, not operate it.
It is this combination of factors that has created space for a different kind of intermediary. Platforms such as StayVista, SaffronStays, Elivaas, Lohono Stays and Staymaster are offering end-to-end property management to home owners, a premium and luxurious stay experience to travellers, and access to a standardized supply of high-end villa properties to OTAs.
StayVista offers over 1,200 homes across India, Elivaas has over 620 properties, SaffronStays operates 465 homes, Lohono Stays has over 300 listings, and Goa-focused Staymaster lists about 200 properties.
What’s interesting is that these listings account for under 4% of the villa supply in India, according to Rishi Modi, co-founder of Staymaster and former senior executive of AirBnB India.
Converting that fragmentation into a scalable, reliable business model is where the real challenge lies.
From listings to control
Early villa platforms functioned primarily as listing sites, but that model proved inadequate.
“The homeowners are not experts and do not have the time or the capability to execute a good job,” said Modi. On the guest side, inconsistency undermined trust. “Guests could never be sure of what they’re booking with alternative accommodation,” he said.
While Staymaster and Elivaas started as fully managed platforms in 2019 and 2023, respectively, StayVista became an aggregator in 2015 and moved to the managed model in 2018. SaffronStays made the transition within a year of launch in 2016.
A managed model means the platform has end-to-end control of the experience. This control begins with onboarding the villa and the homeowner.
Delhi-based Seema Malik, who built a five-bedroom villa Savara in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh, invested deeply in the aesthetic and experience of the property. “We built this place brick by brick. It is not commercial, and offers a very private, home-like environment,” said the 54-year-old former airline executive.
Malik shortlisted StayVista and the property went live in March 2024. The onboarding process, she recalls, was structured and detailed. StayVista required the villa to meet a 120-item checklist that ranged from core infrastructure to smaller details such as a high chair for children.
Other platforms follow similarly rigorous filters. Devendra Parulekar, co-founder of SaffronStays, says this curation plays a critical role. “Selecting the right quality of homes ensures you have fewer maintenance and operational issues later on,” said Parulekar. The company has crossed ₹110 crore in revenue and is targeting between ₹140 crore and ₹150 crore next year.
Revenue-sharing structures vary across companies. Homeowners in some cases have the option of appointing their own caretaking staff, trained by the platform. Or they can opt for a fully managed model. For instance, StayVista and SaffronStays allow homeowners to appoint their own staff, while Lohono, Elivaas and Staymaster recruit their own in-villa staff. “We take care of everything. If there’s a leakage or a light bulb has to be changed, we do it, not the owner,” said Lohono co-founder Dhimaan Shah. Lohono’s parent entity’s revenue stood at ₹542 crore in FY25, according to Tracxn data. However, the company declined to share Lohono’s contribution.
Commissions for the platforms range from 20% to 50%, depending on the model.
These platforms take care of marketing, sales and booking, with their own websites accounting for 50-75% of bookings and OTAs accounting for the rest, underscoring the strength of direct demand for curated inventory. AirBnB and MakeMyTrip are the primary third-party contributors.
The economics
But, how much can a homeowner earn? An owner typically has to invest around ₹6 lakh additionally into the property after the interiors are done. Apart from furnishing and compliance costs, this amount also includes licence fees and related expenses. Upgrades, such as repainting or adding amenities, are additional periodic expenses.
Typically, occupancy rates range from 50% to 70%, with the latter a reality only in top destinations. Higher-end villa tariffs start from around ₹25,000 per night, with the average tariff hovering around ₹35,000 per night. Net margins can range between 15% and 35%, and net earnings for villa owners can fall between ₹1.8 lakh and ₹3.5 lakh a month.
Higher-end villa tariffs start from around ₹25,000 per night, with the average tariff hovering around ₹35,000 per night. Net margins can range between 15% and 35% and net earnings for villa owners can fall between ₹1.8 lakh and ₹3.5 lakh a month.
Rohan Soarez, who lists his four-bedroom villa in Goa’s Arpora on Elivaas, says his objective is not aggressive yield maximization. “The ultimate goal is to come like twice a year, the rest of the time it’s being used, you get some money out of it and the property maintains itself, there’s no money out of pocket,” said Soarez, who runs Faria Holdings, a villa development company.
For platforms, demonstrating value to homeowners is then not just about revenue generation. It is also about risk management.
Malik recalls heavy snowfall in Kasauli that led to a major power outage right after New Year. StayVista’s local network, she said, helped identify backup options and coordinate guest management. “They are the first response for our local team,” she noted.
The cluster constraint
To offer this level of support, platforms follow a cluster model. Ritwik Khare, founder of three-year-old Elivaas and former chief operating officer of hotels at MakeMyTrip, frames the challenge from first principles. “Villas are not a digital business masquerading as hospitality. They are fundamentally operational businesses,” said Khare. Since Elivaas follows a full-service model, it has caretakers and chefs on its rolls, who are supported by area and zonal teams. The company reported revenue of over ₹40 crore in FY25, according to Tracxn.
StayVista’s strategy has also been built around density. “We don’t go thin in locations, we go deep,” said co-founder Damani, describing the model as a “deconstructed hotel.” Each cluster, which can range from 50 to 200 homes, has on-site staff backed by state experience managers who supervise 15 to 20 properties each, along with separate food and beverage teams and maintenance crews.
Damani, who is targeting a ₹230 crore topline this fiscal year, says the idea is to replicate hotel-level oversight across a dispersed inventory, with more than 12 such clusters now operating across the country.
SaffronStays’ Parulekar told Mint that for the 450 homes listed on the platform, the company has 60 operations staff. It currently has six clusters and is targeting nine.
However, the same discipline that protects service standards also slows geographic spread. Take SaffronStays, for instance. Of its 450 villas, 225 are in Maharashtra, with Karjat alone boasting over 100 listings. The rest are spread across Goa, South India, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Kashmir.
The cluster approach also affects homeowner experience. Rishabh Gupta had listed his five-bedroom Dehradun property, Jackfruit Villa, on StayVista between 2022 and 2024. “I had a great experience with StayVista. But, I had to keep my own staff as they were not able to hire their own team,” said Gupta, a Mumbai-based manufacturer, adding that the villa gave him earnings of around ₹2 lakh a month. Gupta could not manage the staff and attrition became a challenge. He then handed over the property to a friend who ran a homestay nearby. “He was not able to handle two properties,” said Gupta, who eventually stopped accepting guests. The Gupta family is now moving out of Mumbai and will live in Jackfruit Villa.
Similarly, Mumbai-based Neha Ramani, a former Nykaa executive, had explored listing her family’s five-bedroom Karjat villa on Lohono. “I have been a long time guest of Lohono and love their properties and the experience,” said Ramani. “But, they need a minimum number of villas in an area to take over operations.” Ramani went ahead with StayVista.
Scaling supply
Organized luxury villa rental remains a small but rapidly growing part of the larger pie.
The fragmented supply and the operational heavy lifting needed to bring villas in newer markets onto platforms raises the question of scale.
With growth directly linked to supply, platforms are actively partnering with real estate developers in regions with high guest demand. This is a model that Lohono has built in with its supply pipeline quite closely linked with parent brand Isprava’s real estate expansion.
Staymaster’s Modi says about 60% of the platform’s supply already falls in this category. The bootstrapped company is targeting $3 million (about ₹27 crore) this fiscal year. StayVista has partnered with Mahindra Lifespaces for its Alibag project and with Abhinandan Lodha for its Dapoli project. SaffronStays has one such development in the works in Lonavala.
In this model, the platform enters into an agreement with the developer and the home buyer. In effect, platforms are attempting to make supply creation more structured and are influencing how and where villas are built rather than merely aggregating what already exists.
Goa villa developer Soarez says owners who buy from him are increasingly opting for such platforms. Six out of seven villa owners in one development in Arpora, and two out of four in another near Siolim, have listed on Elivaas.
Narayan, meanwhile, is preparing to list the next villa he has bought from Isprava on Lohono. The four bedroom, ₹8 crore villa is expected to go live in April.
If the platforms continue to attract guests, the managed villa may evolve into a durable hybrid asset—part lifestyle purchase, part structured hospitality play. If they do not, the risk is familiar. An aspirational acquisition that begins as a retreat and quietly turns into an expense.