Track2Realty: Mumbai’s residential segment witnessed mixed sentiments during the first six months of the year. While the city’s leasing market displayed signs of weakness during the review period, the sales market managed to hold its ground with limited capital appreciation in a few locations. These are the findings of CBRE’s latest research report on the residential sector, ‘India Residential Market View H1 2013’.
Track2Realty-Agencies: While the sentiment in the real estate sector continues to be sluggish, SRS Real Infrastructure is eyeing Rs 1,200 crore of revenue this fiscal, mainly on the back of new launches, a top company official has said.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Placement stands as the fifth P of branding. The built environment in branding is all about heightening the customer’s experience and amplifying the aura of brand’s essence. Hence, the branded environment, the moment of truth, is where it must live the brand by staging immaculate detailing that engages all senses of the discerning luxury consumer.
Track2Realty-Agencies: RBI has asked banks to link the disbursal of home loans to stages of construction to protect the interests of buyers and contain the fallout of “innovative” housing financing schemes.
Track2Realty Exclusive: An affordable housing project should be located within reasonable distances from workplaces and should be connected adequately through public transport.
Track2Realty Exclusive: When it comes to the first P, that is Performance, the brand is measured at two levels—product level and experience level. At the product level, it must satisfy the functional and utilitarian characteristic as well as deliver on its practical physical attributes. It must stand up to the expected quality or design excellence ingredients like creativity, exclusivity, craftsmanship, precision, materials, high quality & innovation.
Track2Realty Survey: Is a buyer ready to pay premium for the brand reputation of the developer? Majority of the brand conscious buyers’ say ‘NO’ unless the big brand has offering to match the high price and differentiate the product. In the high-end category, 40 per cent of the buyers are ready to pay a premium.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Brands in general and luxury brands in particular are scaled up on the 8 Ps—Performance, Paucity, Persona, Public Relations, Placement, Personal Touch, Pedigree and Public Figure. Bhawna Modgil tries to scale up the Indian real estate on the given 8 Ps to measure how each of the metrics of branding has been redefined by the developer; not to customise it to the Indian sensibilities but to satisfy their ego, misplaced conviction of brand positioning and assuming sales calls as the branding ROI.
Track2Realty Survey: The question is what shapes public perception as far as brand premium of a real estate company is concerned? User experience and word of mouth publicity is what matters to them and advertising is nothing more than a medium to know about the new launches.
Track2Realty Exclusive: One mistake that the Indian realtors have been doing is to go for a cheap and easy way to establish brand recognition is through technology, especially popular mediums like blogs, Facebook and Twitter, which help them build relationship with their clients.