Steve Waugh

Cricketer Steve Waugh promoted Waugh Global Realty has entered the domestic realty market by launching a portal to gratify the housing demands of NRIs. Waugh’s entry into the Indian real estate has come at a time when the realty sector is going through turmoil as inventories are piling up. This is likely to entice more NRIs to invest in India’s property market as they may fetch good bargains.

“NRIs are enthusiastic about investing in the Indian realty market. Many are looking at good properties in the country not only from the investment perspective, but also to settle down later.

He says that the venture is a result of the commitment Waugh made to himself that “he wanted to play a shaping role in India’s growth story over the next 10 years”. According to a report in Economic Times, this is first such platform that caters to the NRI market. “Our aim is to concentrate on the NRI investment experience through the online medium,” Waugh, founder and chairman of the company has been quoted as saying in a report.

The portal currently has 91 properties listed on its portal of 10 developers across seven cities — Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. Waugh Global has partnered with leading developers like the Lodha Group, Godrej, Shapoorji, K Raheja, Kalpataru, Kolte Patil and Sobha Developers, among several others.

Dean Honan, the Managing Director of Waugh Global  explained that the focus of the portal is not only confined to listing properties but also to offer a broad range of additional services like property management and rental solutions, land advisory services, NRI qualification and activation services. The company also plans to introduce Australian property sales and market entry gradually.

3D preview of flats

Now you can have a three dimensional view of your wannabe residential flats as the developers have created a buzz with digital marketing and soft tools to induce the buyers. The developers and builders are using every tool in the kitty right from using drones to film new projects and thus offer a preview of how the flat will look like to the prospective buyer.

Already affected by the sagging sales, the developers have resorted to digital marketing tools to sell at least 2, 00,000 residential units during the October-December period, which translates for about 40 per cent of the annual sales. Industry watchers say developers are hoping to close as many deals by the year end as possible.

A host of builders are using 3D walkthroughs that help prospective buyers to visualise what they are going to buy. Speaking about the new approach, Advitiya Sharma, co-founder of Housing.com told a newspaper, “We have used drones to capture the view of a project from various angles. For a consumer, the Internet is the first point of enquiry and we want the experience to be good.”  This company, which counts Tata Housing and Rustomjee among its clients, says it has about 10,000 projects under its net. Several developers, including Tata Housing, Godrej, Mahindra, Wave and CHD already have a digital presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest. Tata Housing recently partnered with Snapdeal to sell homes online.

It may be noted that the businesses are moving towards new age marketing. Real estate is no exception. Nowadays referrals and word-of-mouth are becoming very critical for brand building and sustaining growth. This explains why social media and online presence have become very pertinent for real estate marketers, as they help them engage with prospective buyers, says A Harikesh, Senior Vice-President, Marketing & Sales, Tata Housing Development Company.

As per the data put out by the ASSOCHAM, its recent study found that realty firms spend about Rs 2,500 crore every year on publicity across different media and digital marketing accounts. Real estate portal CommonFloor.com has launched an augmented reality-based property search app called CommonFloor Real Estate, which also enables GPS-based map search and brings all its services to the mobile phone. If compared with traditional marketing like newspaper advertisements or billboards, digital advertisements are far cheaper and have a longer shelf life. Besides, industry watchers say that the shift to digital media is also helping developers cut costs by 10-15 per cent.