Moving ahead from the festive season

by Suman Gupta

The 2019 festive season just concluded with many Indians cashing-in to buy homes during a period which is both auspicious and invariably also sweetened with offers from developers. Since the festive season is considered very auspicious for the purchase of property, close to 30-40% of yearly sales are generated during this short period itself. Hit by the prolonged slowdown in the real estate market, property developers betted big on this festive season for the revival of their fortunes.

Anuj Puri, Chairman, ANAROCK Group states that, “Good projects, good developers and right prices are factors that will ensure sales in attractive locations. With returning demand, we can expect the natural laws of the market to manifest and prices to begin firming up in the good projects. The festive season of 2019 also coincided with various government incentives to ensure improved demand over the same period last year.”

Reputed Developers who are selling the right product at a right price point are garnering good sales. Buyers too are looking for either RERA-compliant good quality projects from reputed developers or projects that are ready to move in. According to major real estate players, there has been a sharp increase in enquiries over the past few weeks.

“The sentiment in Mumbai has definitely improved in the past few months. The number of enquiries and bookings has gone up in our projects, and we expect the market to remain positive in the upcoming quarters. We recently launched Runwal Pinnacle, our new project featuring Mulund’s tallest towers and sold almost 80% of our first phase within two months. This is affirmation of the fact that good projects by trusted developers are doing well,” says Subodh Runwal, Director, Runwal Group.

Expressing his thoughts on the buyer sentiments, Mr. Bhasker Jain, Head of Sales, Marketing & CRM at The Wadhwa Group says that, “Every year real estate sector witnesses positive sentiments flowing in the market during these auspicious times. Residential real estate is seeing some revival in buyer’s sentiment. We have witnessed a significant surge in sales across our projects which reinforce our belief that reputed companies holding an excellent track record have been bucking the trend and performing well.”

Modi Government’s slew of measures to boost housing demand is expected to result in housing sales increasing by between 5-7 percent in the festive season, Anarock Research predicted in a report. Real-estate developers expected an upward surge and steady increase in sales this festive season; backed by a slew of reforms the finance ministry has announced recently. Developers say reforms, including increased liquidity and creation of stress asset funds has helped in reviving buyers’ sentiments.

“The policy reforms and developments had a cumulative positive impact on the overall sector and has helped build long and trusting relationships between the developer and the buyer,” added Mr. Jain.

New launches have improved in the last couple of quarters. Many micro-markets have seen new launches and overall, there is an upsurge in sales compared to the previous quarters.

Commenting on the buyer preferences, Deepak Nair, Head-Marketing, JP Infra Mumbai Pvt. Ltd. said, “Traditionally for real estate, the festive season fares better than the rest of the year especially for home buyers. We have seen an enormous increase in demand for ready-to-move-in and OC received apartments in our project North Garden City at Mira Road and the trend ought to continue. These ready-to-move-in properties are seen as an excellent value proposition for discerning home buyers as they get to feel the actual apartment that they intend to buy and helps mitigate risks associated with new projects that include incessant delays. Also, these homes do not attract GST which is the biggest benefit for home buyers.”

Commenting on the marketing spends during the festive season, Sarojini Ahuja – VP, Sales & Marketing, Transcon Triumph says, “Any developer goes for 360-degree marketing for the launch of the project to sell maximum inventory. Gradually the budget reduces according to the needs and is spent during the festive season to boost sales. During the last leg of the project, again the marketing activities are reactivated for the closure of sales. We spend around 0.5 percent of the project cost on marketing every year. Every year we spend the same budget on marketing, infact our OC is expected any moment for Transcon Triumph so the spend might increase to an additional 0.25 percent. We spend around 15 percent of our total marketing budget for the GCC market targeting the NRI community.”

Positive consumer sentiment, backed by various reformatory changes, is helping the market stay afloat.