Nearly all the developers in the Indian real estate are chasing the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) but very few have succeeded in attracting the investment of expat Indians. Reason: They have tried to hard sell the properties without actually understanding what these fellow Indians living abroad want.
Browsing: Consumer Connect
The Google search of Ratan Pandit, a prospective homebuyer, for Noida Extension market completely confused him. With various conflicting reports where one of the property consultancy firms endorsing the market as future investment magnet and the other one advising to stay away due to over-supply in this market, this homebuyer could not reach to any conclusion. Even various property listing sites were of not much use in terms of the understanding of the given market.
So, you have been blaming the builder for end-to-end problems that you have encountered before and after settling in your dream home. Cost of apartment, delay in delivery, mismatch in promises & performance, costly maintenance and poor facility management, the list goes endless. More often than not, the grievances are legitimate.
The journalists covering real estate news are always on the lookout for the grey areas and these buyers’ associations feed them. In exchange, they are always in the news and that lends them credibility in the given market.
Investing in relationship management to earn the trust & goodwill of the homebuyers is something that the Indian real estate has not adopted as an industry practice. CRM or Customer Relationship Management is something that every developer today boasts of, but this relationship hardly goes beyond attending phone calls of aggrieved buyers and online registration of grievances.
It is noteworthy that Supertech has not only hit by the dissatisfied homebuyers but also been at the receiving end of government agencies and the law for two of its most ambitious projects, Emerald Court and Czar.
The real estate markets across the major cities is today witness to a new spate of consumer activism which is more political in its functioning than consumer centric. Worse even, many of them even operate as the de facto consumer courts in advising others in how they should take on the builders.
Some call it market intelligence and not due diligence where the focus should be more on the micro markets than general trends which could be misleading. However, there are many grey areas where in the absence of proper research and reliable data even the assessment of ground realities is not feasible.
The real estate sector is in dire need to communicate an connect with the stakeholders and society at large. In the name of communication all that they do is to hire a PR (Public Relations) agency for the purpose of brand building but do not understand what is communication in the right context.
Beyond the economic rationale, the developers assert that they are doing their homework properly. One of the largest developers claims it has its own empanelled brokers to give constant feedback on the market before the launch of any new project. They supplement it with a proper in-house research of the market, the catchment area, competition and other market forces.