Sale-starved builders woo buyers

With developers in a race against time to clear their inventory and push sales, property buyers are spoilt for choice as realty firms are offering discounts, freebies and attractive financing schemes, say experts.

Realty players like Kolte-Patil Developers, Tata Housing, Puravankara Projects, Godrej Properties among others are using online platform to sell their properties and are offering various financial schemes to woo buyers.

Traditionally, developers resort to such schemes during festive season. But in order to clear the inventory before the fiscal-end, industry experts believe, firms are pulling out all stops to attract customers.

“There are two main reasons — one, most micro markets have large inventories practically all across the country and developers want to clear as much of that as possible.

“Another reason is, with a large number of developers having been listed and most others looking towards institutional money, track record of sales and execution become very important,” Colliers International Director, Valuation and Advisory Services Maneesh Gupta told PTI.

Quarterly and annual financial results is what investors would follow very keenly and this is the last quarter of FY15 and hence developers want to have a great closing for the quarter as well as the year. This sales push is also perhaps targeted at reporting robust earnings, he said.

Echoing similar views, PwC associate director Bhairav Dalal said, “Developers adopt this strategy to lure customers as sales are not happening for the past few years. Discounts and schemes like offering home loan at an interest rate of 7.99 per cent for a specific period will attract buyers, but that translating into actual sales is something that needs to be observed.”

Developers like Tata Housing and Dosti Group are offering home loans at an interest rate of 7.99 per cent for a specific period. Purvankara is offering home loan at 6.99 per cent, as compared to the current prevailing interest rates of 10.25-10.50 per cent. XRBIA has offered to buyers to pay only 7.25 per cent interest on the loan amount for the entire term period.

Kolte-Patil recently organised a home-buying expo in Pune where it displayed its projects which offered discounts.

Some other developers have also tied-up with portals including Snapdeal, Housing.com, Amazon, among others, for online bookings.

“Real estate industry has witnessed a sea change in the past few years basis changing consumer demographics.

Adoption of the online platform by the modern day consumer has added a new channel of sales for the industry and led to a wider reach for consumers,” Tata Housing MD and CEO Brotin Banerjee said.

“Today’s home buyer wants to make sure that he has the ability to buy, even the biggest things online. Online booking options at Snapdeal ensure that we are present exactly where our current customers are,” Kolte-Patil CEO Sujay Kalele said.

Godrej Properties EVP- Marketing and Sales Girish Shah said, “in case of real estate, customers always look forward to the offers and special deals coming their way and developers expect increased sales. From time to time, we have a host of customised schemes on offer across all our projects ranging and also subvention schemes for some of our projects.” — PTI