Track2Realty: Over fifty percent of real estate buyers decisions are influenced by Internet research. The phenomenon, of researching online for real estate information is not limited to metros but also extended to buyers in tier II cities, as per the study of Google India. The study was conducted to understand the influence of Internet on real estate purchase decisions in India.
The study compiled by Google, on the basis of a pan India offline research conducted by Zinnov and real estate related search query trends on Google revealed that the overall influence of Internet today on real estate transaction value of both residential and commercial property including rentals amounted to 43$ billion USD, with 31$ billion USD for residential and 12 Billion USD for commercial properties.
The offline survey conducted across 15 cities in India with over 6000 respondents revealed that 74% of real estate research online was focused on residential buying and 26% focused on residential renting. Almost half the respondents were indifferent to new or resale property (47%) as the criteria for research focused more on their space requirement, budget and location. 23% respondents were in the market for resale property only, and 30% were looking for new property under construction.
In the survey, respondents rated Internet in the top three medium for information for real estate research, with 24 percent respondents rating Internet as the top destination for information. Print media and sales-broker offices were the rated as the other top two information sources for property information.
Amongst the top destinations on the Internet for real estate information, aggregator sites (62%) were rated as the top source for information, followed by builder and developers sites (52%). Online broker sites and real estate blogs and forums (~45%) were also rated as popularly used destinations for information.
Ease of comparison, large variety of options, easy access to detailed information about the property, market trends, financing options and contact details of the property owners were rated as the top reasons for using Internet for real estate research. The report revealed that buyers who contribute to over 90% of total real estate transactions in the country have an annual Household income over 5 lakhs; a majority of which were already using the Internet today.
Speaking on the launch of the study, Nitin Bawankule, Industry Director, Google India, said “It is clear that Internet today, is emerging as the top destination for researching before finalizing any high value purchase and the consumer behavior is no different for real estate purchases. Real estate queries on Google search have been growing consistently registering over 3x growth in the last three years, the rate of query growth is even higher for tier 2 cities and growing at over 350%. Our search query data shows that over 53% search queries are done with clear purchase intent.”
“It is estimated that the real estate industry will grow to become a 140 $ billion by 2017 and the Internet audience base is expected to reach over 450 million by then. There is tremendous opportunity for both online real estate aggregators, brokers and developers to engage the buyers online by providing rich, meaningful and immersive experience to buyers on the Internet, including mobile ready online assets as the trends are consistent both in metro and tier 2 cities” he added.
In tier 1 cities over 57% buyers were influenced by online research and in tier 2 cities the impact was equally high with 48% buyers saying that they used Internet to research for real estate purchase decisions. The usage of mobile phones for accessing real estate information online was also significant with over 55% buyers using it to access the information. This finding was consistent with Google search, with mobile contributing to over 40% real estate queries on Google search. Mobile apps were preferred over websites by buyers with 73% respondents saying they prefer to use mobile apps.
Amongst the wishlist, respondents highlighted the need for accurate and updated information with details of locality and amenities online. Respondents also highlighted the low availability of information for commercial property information online. While respondents appreciated the availability of contact details of owners, they also highlighted the problems of brokers pretending to be owners and asked for sites to run more detailed checks on listings. Offering online chats, quick turnaround to online queries and providing experts counselling were highlighted as some of the improvements they would like to see from real estate players on the Internet.
As per the search trends, (Google search queries data for 2013):
The highest number of real estate queries in tier II cities come from:
· Pune, followed by Lucknow, Jaipur, Indore, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Kanpur, Surat and Ahmedabad
· Amongst the top metros – NCR followed by Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai
Methodology for the Study:
Combination of insights from the offline survey conducted by Zinnov on behalf of Google and Google search trends for Real estate queries from 2010 till May 2014.
Offline face to face survey conducted by Zinnov across top 15 cities in India with respondents who were in the market for real estate needs (Buying/Renting). Sample size 6196: Top 8 metros: 3267, Top 8 tier 2 cities: 2929
· Male: 5177, Female: 1006
· Age group: 25 to 60 years = 6099
· Age group: 60+ years = 96
· Residential Buying: 2580
· Residential Renting: 2413
· Commercial renting: 1200
