Thursday 11 August 2016

Is the real estate market still a good investment for a household?

The real estate market is one of the most globally recognized sectors. In India, it is the 2nd largest employer after agriculture and is poised to grow at 30 per cent over the next few years. The Indian real estate market has become one of the most preferred destinations in the Asia Pacific as overseas funds accounted for more than 50 per cent of all investment activity in India in 2014, compared with just 26 per cent in 2013. This sector consists of four sub sectors - housing, retail, hospitality, and
commercial. The growth of the real estate sector is accompanied by the growth of the corporate environment and the demand for office space as well as urban and semi-urban housing requirements.
It is also expected that this sector will incur more non-resident Indian(NRI) investments in both the short term and the long term. Bengaluru is expected to be the most favored property investment destination for NRIs, followed by Ahmedabad, Pune, Chennai, Goa, Delhi and Dehradun.

However, with huge inventory lying unsold across the country, the road to recovery looks long and winding for the real estate sector. According to experts, it will take another five years to sell the entire unsold inventory, but lack of buyers' interest will make it more and more difficult for developers to complete existing projects. Even the festive season and the recent round of rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) have failed to bring cheers to the real estate market. Lack of a regulator and delayed reforms have also prompted people to stay away from real estate. Property prices have remained stagnated. Investor activity in the real estate sector, which showed signs of being less promising over the past three years, is finally on an uphill in 2016 thanks to regulatory reforms. This year is a good time for prospective home buyers to lock-in as prices have become stable, but delays in delivery and unaffordability are dampeners to the revival of consumer
sentiment.

With regards to new launches, developers have cut down on new projects. Moreover, end-users have not been buying properties feeling let down by the developers. Stretched deadlines for completion of projects has shooed buyers away from the market. However, to revive the consumer sentiment, developers will have to improve delivery of incomplete projects and reduce prices. They also need to clean up their balance sheets by de-leveraging to nurture more confidence among investors and
allow more liquidity options. 2015 proved to be a stimulating year for the industry with government starting the process of initiating policies that will maintain the growth of the sector. Unsold units are a key indicator for the real estate sector. Rising levels of inventory signify the lack of demand in the market. The real estate market in India lacks regulation, transparency and systematic process. A
regulator for the sector will help buyers and investors to rebuild their faith in builders and developers.

The Government of India along with the governments of the respective states has taken several initiatives to encourage the development in this sector. The Smart City Project, where there is a plan to build 100 smart cities, is a prime opportunity for the real estate companies. Responding to an increasingly knowledgeable consumer base and, keeping in mind the aspect of globalization, Indian real estate developers have started shifting gears and consequently accepting new challenges.
The most remarkable change has been the shift from family owned businesses to that of professionally managed ones. The continuous inflow of FDI into Indian real estate is promising increased transparency. Considering all the above factors I personally think that as an investor it
may not be a good idea to invest in real estate in 2016. But, for end-users, however, it is certainly the right time.

Tuesday 9 August 2016

Pay Per Site Visit Model(PPSV)- an innovate tactic by Krono


In the recent years, the road for the realty sector, specifically the residential sector has been bumpy and has been witnessing turbulent times. High inventory levels, diminished demand and limited liquidity saw sales and prices plummet, impacting new launches. The real estate sector witnessed the worst phase in 2015-16. Overall residential sales were down. But in order to resolve and tackle this crisis, real estate in India has been trying to figure new strategies for marketing and pushing sales as well its revenues. Today, high to middle-low end customer’s journey in India starts with online research. Therefore, real estate digital marketing is a powerful tool for selling residential complexes. In fact, real estate companies in India are exploiting several mediums on internet, like digital marketing, to reduce their marketing spends on traditional media and enhance their outreach, effectiveness and conversion rates.  According to recent surveys and reports, Real estate firms in India spend about 25 per cent on digital marketing. With such a major chunk of digital marketing proves that real estate has approved its efficacy and relevance. 
Marketing companies like Krono, look out for new marketing tactics and strategies to lure different real estate builders. Krono has come up with one such innovative tactic – "Pay Per Site Visit Model" (PPSV).  The potential client is charged a fixed fee on each site visit. The best part here Krono doesn’t charge the client for advertising, marketing, collaterals, media or the database selected and executed.
Krono, is a company that provides digital and Direct marketing solutions along with value added services to the customer environment by specialization (specializing) in the state of the art systems and technology to provide professional outsourcing service. Providing services in the fields of Email, SMS, Telecalling, Database Management and Lead Generation and Management, coupled with Marketing Strategies, Planning and Execution activities, the company has a Reach out Facilitation to over 10000 clients Pan India. In terms of Real Estate, their clients have included- Rustomjee, Lodha, KalpaTaru, Kanakia, Dosti Realty, Tata Housing, Square Yards, Peninsula, Sobha, Hiranandani, Ajmera, Jones Lang Lasalle, Falco Developers, Godrej Properties, Mahindra LifeSpaces,etc
PPSV model- In a nutshell
In the PPSV model, Krono collects all the possible details from the builder about the project that includes the price, location, amenities, etc. Krono includes all their experience and skill into creating the collaterals. (Including the creative, design and content) Accordingly, they then figure which database to use basis the property brief received. (Be it basis income, pin code, city, designation or community).  Further, the media is filtered and the ones which are most appropriate to market and best suited to the property are chosen.  Mediums like Whatsapp, SMS, Email, Google Adwords, Club Activation, etc are encompassed for the same. Once the media is figured, Krono tries  and executes the campaign. Hence, they start receiving responses.
The following mentioned below  are the two kinds of responses received:
A.    Junk Leads- People who don’t fit the criteria
 and
B.     Raw Leads- People who fit the criteria, who may or may not show interest.

In the process, Junk leads are excluded and the Raw leads are called upon. Then the Raw Leads are asked three sorts of questions –
A.    Interest in the (name) of the builder
B.     Interest in the exact location and area
C.     Interest in the budget (minimum to maximum range)
Once Krono achieves an affirmative response, that is a YES to all the concerned three questions; those are considered as a genuine lead. Krono warms up the Genuine Lead right till the end to come and see the site. In the entire exercise, Krono does not charge for the collaterals, data Filtration and the media selected and executed. Instead, in this case they will charge a fixed fee on each site visit. In this model, one can buy as many site visits as one wishes to buy and the agency will in reverse, execute the entire campaign to arrive at that many site visits for your property.
Example of PPSV Model
One of the "A Grade" developers was struggling between leads and verified LEADS for his project which was based in the central suburbs of mumbai. It was a very rare case that the leads were converting into site visits. The end result was poor conversion sites. When Krono figured this problem, the Pay Per Visit Model was introduced to the developer. The developer had given Krono time duration of approximately 3 to 4 months’ to turn this issue around in their favor in order to get maximum site visits. In that time period, the developer discontinued other marketing activities and worked with Krono closely on every site visit. Within a short span of time, Krono did around 180 odd genuine site visits approximately and ended up with 21 closures. This resulted in a success of almost 30 more hot leads in the pipeline which even included a ticket size of between 80 lac to 1.2 crore for each conversion. As a result, the developer was happy to further renew the contract with Krono for  six months.

Finally what matters to a builder or a broker is the conversions and the site visit model ensures the home buyer has reached the final tipping point just before he does convert to buy the house.