by Suman Gupta
National,Nov 2018: Housing.com, part of Elara Technologies Pte Ltd., which also owns PropTiger.com and Makaan.com, achieved big success as the month-long online home shopping festival generated sales of Rs 1200 crore in October for over 350 residential projects showcased during the festival. In the second successful edition, the Home Utsav brought on board over 600 developers and brokers to make the event bigger than ever before and to provide a wide choice for consumers.
Given the phenomenal response, the Home Utsav will be extended to the first week of November as well. A range of properties, from affordable to affordable luxury and from luxury to super luxury and from under-construction to ready-for-possession homes, priced between Rs 14 lakh and Rs 16 crore are being showcased during the festival. Using the easy-to-navigate online platform Housing.com is known for, buyers have responded overwhelmingly to the online festival.
Exciting deals have been the key highlight of the festive season and leading developers have offered a host of deals including free international vacations, stamp-duty and GST waiver, flexi-payment schemes, get-rent-till-possession offers, gold coins, free modular kitchens, air conditioners, Harley Davidson motorbikes, maintenance-charge waivers, cashback offers and festival cash discounts.
Mani Rangarajan, Chief Business Officer, Housing.com said, “The phenomenal response from the Home Utsav festival augurs well for the industry. Indian homebuyers are definitely on the lookout for a right-sized property and are willing to invest. We studied consumer behaviour throughout the Home Utsav, and it is wonderful to see inquiries translating into sales. We are hopeful that the positive climate will last for a while, riding on the back of some major structural and regulatory developments in the recent past.”
Basis the number of inquiries received during the festival, top cities where prospective buyers actively searched for a property include Mumbai, Pune and Noida. Of the total enquiries received on the online platform, 29% were for Mumbai while 10% were from Pune. Noida, Kolkata and Delhi had 8% share in the overall numbers. Other cities where buyers were very active include Bengaluru, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Ghaziabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Faridabad.
On Housing.com, most of the customers looking for a property during the Home Utsav were in the age group of 25-34 years. Signalling that India is keen on mid-sized and affordable-housing options, about 40% of inquiries were received for 2BHK units while 3BHK units grabbed got 26% of the total share. 1BHK units managed 22% share in the inquiries. Other available formats during the festival included were 1RK, 1.5BHK, 2.5BHK and 3.5BHK units.
About Elara Technologies Pte. Ltd. : Elara Technologies Pte. Ltd is a Singapore-based technology services company and is the owner of Housing.com, PropTiger.com and Makaan.com. The company provides digital real estate marketing and transactions services.
Housing.com :Founded in 2012, Housing.com is India’s most innovative real estate advertising platform for developers, real estate brokers & home owners and for consumers searching to buy and rent homes. The company offers the largest selection of verified listings in India through a trained team of data collectors, analysts and auditors. The one-of-a-kind Data Sciences Lab at Housing.com analyses a significant body of information to allow buyers and sellers to make intelligent decisions.
PropTiger.com :PropTiger.com is India’s leading digital real estate advisory firm offering a one-stop platform for buying residential real estate. Founded in 2011 with the goal to help people buy their dream homes, PropTiger.com leverages the power of information and the organisation’s deep-rooted understanding of the real estate sector to bring simplicity, transparency and trust in the home buying process.
PropTiger.com helps home-buyers through the entire home-buying process through a mix of technology-enabled tools as well as on-ground support. The company offers researched information about various localities and properties and provides guidance on matters pertaining to legal paperwork and loan assistance to successfully fulfil a transaction. Since inception, the PropTiger.com team has facilitated the sales of close to 25,000 homes worth nearly US$2.2 billion.
Makaan.com was acquired by Elara in May 2015, with a vision to establish a true “marketplace” in real estate. With consumer ratings on more than 30,000 sellers, credible listings data and real-time intelligence on property search, makaan.com has quickly emerged as the preferred partner for consumers looking to rent, buy or sell a home. With its unique post-paid advertising fees model and value proposition of no upfront fees for sellers, makaan.com has grown to have more than 45,000 active sellers with over 15000 active brokers in a short span of time. makaan.com offers its online consumers the maximum property options and has become one of the largest advertising platforms in online real estate in India with over 900,000 residential properties listed across the country.
Makaan.com was recently selected as a runner up in the Most Innovative Platform category at a global event in the ICMA event held at Vienna, Austria.
