The last two years have seen a lot of adversity and witnessed challenging environments but at the same time, there has been a wave of investing in property. This was coupled with the innovative sales approach by the developers. Praveen Apte, Managing Director, Pune, Savills Property Services (India) Pvt. Ltd points out, “It is no longer about just purchasing the property, the buyers now look at the entire experience of buying and with the ‘customer being the king’, the realty firms are going all out to make the process as smooth as possible.”
Mohit Goyal, Joint Managing Director, Goyal Properties added, “The buyer profile is getting younger and they are tech savvy. During the pandemic they saved a lot and the sentiment of owning a property ran high. There is a visible shift in the mind-set and the behaviour of the customers. They have all the information at hand before they visit a property and make instant decisions.”
Nitin Gupta, President Sales Marketing & CRM Head, Mantra Properties & Developers said, “Real estate is no more a brick or mortar business. We are becoming a service industry and the customer engagements starts from pre-sales to post sales. Also, developers are now turning towards technology to reap benefits of the digital and the virtual engagement.”
Pushpamitra Das, Founder, Justo shared another aspect, “Pricing has now become even more critical for the buyer as they want bigger homes within their budgets. On the other hand, construction costs are rising. This means developers have to employ strategies to speed up construction for faster deliveries and cash flows.”highlighted that in India home buying is equivalent to asset building. "Indians invest in home as a financial instrument and therefore we saw a sudden surge in homebuying during the pandemic as it was considered a safe investment option.”
Rahul Goyal, Co-Founder, Realatte Adventures LLP concurred, “To tap the high sentiment of home buying, developers switched to technology solutions to reach out to the potential customers, conducting site visits through virtual walkthroughs. We have started seeing our conversion rates from our digital campaigns scaling up in recent times.”
ROLE OF SALES AGENCIES & TECH PLATFORMS
Praveen Apte expressed, “With increased adoption of technology and online aggregator websites, there has been a gradual diminishing of role of internal sales agencies in realty firms. On the other end, the entire project mandate is given to a channel partner for faster sales. The role of technology coupled with channel partner engagement will continue to grow over the next few years.”
Pushpamitra Das shared, “Having just channel partners or virtual platforms may work for top line projects in brilliant locations. But in the long run, what is actually going to work is a very robust internal sales team and a few of the mandate companies to give touch and feel experience to the customers.”
Rahul Goyal agreed, “The trend is on making search online, booking the property online and then doing the site visit. This makes the property buying time engagement and deal closing efficient and quick. Thus, technology solutions are essential to make the first impression and converting the lead. For the actual closing, the sales team and channel partner can make a big difference.”
Mudra Wedhikar added, “Data mining is now becoming a critical factor. A developer collects too much of data but how to use the relevant data is becoming a challenge. Proptech tools are now being employed to reach the target audience.”
Mohit Goyal shared similar thoughts, “Customers have no dearth of information. When they come to a project they are very well aware of what to expect. As a developer, making sense of the data and reaching the right customer for a particular project is important including building efficiencies in communication with the customer to enhance the customer delight.”
Nitin Gupta said, “The biggest learning over the last few years from business point of view is that uncertainty is the only certain thing in this world, so we have to be flexible and adaptive in our business approach.”
THE DEVELOPER’S SALES APPROACH NOW HAS SOFTER ELEMENTS COMPRISING EMPATHY AND FLEXIBILITY IN TERMS OF FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS.
TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO BE BECOME THE BIGGEST SELLING TOOL IN THE FUTURE FROM LEAD GENERATION, AGGREGATION TO MANAGING AND EFFECTIVELY UTILISING THE DATA.