By: Priyanka Manjari
Track2Realty Exclusive: Even if I compromise with what I want and surrender to what I need, as per the definition of realtor/broker, will I get my house possession on time? Will the construction be as good and space as much as promised?
On other questions, home buyers’ priorities are very clear. Car parking obviously remains a huge issue. A developer should not be more bothered to create fancy solutions that simply are seldom used, once or twice a year. What they rather need is a neighbourhood that can sustain a good range of local services.
My wish list may be a bit too long here, so I feel the Indian home buyers like me should better focus on what we don’t want. We don’t want freebies or foreign tours, if you have that kind of largesse in mind please reduce the cost of the flat itself.
We don’t want an A/C or refrigerator, a modular kitchen etc, instead it would be a great help if you allow us to suggest some modification and customisation during construction as per our needs. We don’t want to get into legal hassles or instead your penalty cheque for late delivery, so timely completion would be a real favour to the buyer.
More importantly, we are not your extended agent chain to spread your project’s referrals and earn some commission, instead you as a company should create a house for us which genuinely evokes goodwill that is strong enough to create a word-of-mouth publicity and hence references.
I am reading nowadays that there will be a regulator to regulate the malpractices in the real estate. Well, that may be a good idea for the facelift of the business of real estate but developers, policy makers and other professionals involved need to take account of consumer views, alongside other wider considerations, when they make decisions.
An average home buyer’s desires are not large enough for the real estate developers to handle. But if only they think of genuine goodwill of the buyers to emerge as a brand that evokes referrals. Unfortunate reality is that real estate branding is just synonymous with the sales push through advertisements that may or may not sell the project, but definitely falls short on the expectations of average home buyers like me.
It is much easier for the real estate companies to dismiss ordinary buyers’ wish list under the pretext that there are certainly more nuances to home buyers’ views than the headlines of market research often suggest. After all, when consumers talk about their aesthetic tastes, most do not like minimalism; but nor do they like the blandness of so much volume house building.
They want character; neighbourhoods that feel like places with their own attractive identity. And while they don’t like feeling overcrowded, they do value the sorts of local services and sense of community that higher density developments can sustain.
Often it is our common associations with the worst of compact living that we reject, rather than the reality of the best. It is time for the real estate sector in general to match the consumer expectations for a general image makeover, and realty companies in particular to emerge as a ‘brand’ in the true sense of the term.
Failing this, I am afraid, don’t ask the home buyers’ wish list. They are any way conscious nowadays with their roads leading to consumer courts and Competition Commission of India.
