It seems the dare devil Dhoni, as he is known, has this time met another courageous risk taking developer who does not mind joining hands with someone who has only recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons. This also raises a fundamental question as to whether the developer has been smart in strategy or it is just another case of ‘Me Too’ in showcasing its financial clout to have a celebrity endorsing its brand.
I often question how will honest journalism survive in this eco system. It is not that I don’t face the challenges and resistance of not being a party to this cartel of corruption. Forget the builders, even a large section of builders’ ‘paid & pet’ journalists have issues with me. I am, after all, a game spoiler for them who is spreading the negativity with brutal honest and ruthless journalism.
Welcome to the world of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Indian real estate. The ground reality is that the real estate companies today get into CSR for fulfilling mandatory provisions and/or tax adjustments than any real concern for the society.
Many developers do not make themselves available to customers, making it necessary for them to deal with marketing personnel who are trained to be evasive and non-committal.
Ranging from 50 acre to 850 acre, integrated townships are slowly but surely catching up in Coimbatore and since this part of the property market has so far remained oblivious to the concept of a proper gated living, the developers are leaving no stone unturned to replicate similar success story that other matured property markets across the country have registered.
When the property market is hot, the sharks begin to circle; recognising the opportunity to fleece the rest of us out of our money. The problem with property scams (cartel of appreciation) is that they are hard to detect in advance and often perfectly legal. They are marketed convincingly and professionally, unlike the instantly recognisable scams we are used to in other walks of life. Property sharks are harder to pin down when the market is going up, but they are nowhere to be seen when the prices crashes.
The satellite towns and periphery locations of major cities across the country have been stigmatised as the last refuge of the struggling homebuyers. The collective consciousness looks at these locations meant for buyers who have no choice but to compromise with their wants and needs.
Track2Realty Public Perception Survey, however, proves these assumptions wrong. More than half of Indians, as many as 54%, track the real estate news, analysis and launches even after they have purchase their house. Even more in number, 58%, monitor real estate sector and developers’ performance along with reputation for future investment purposes.
There is also a third set of buyers who buy properties in the second home locations as their first home. They are the buyers who look for locations that would be first home location in the next few years. Of course, the budget constraints force them to look for low-cost housing. Analysts believe this third set of buyers can not be classified as the second home buyers.
The memories of Uphaar Tragedy on the fateful day of 13thJune, 1997, that claimed the lives of 59 and injured over 100 people, have not faded from the public memory. But it seems the developers in this part of the word are not ready to learn any lessons. For them firefighting is a mandatory provision that just needs to be installed, irrespective of its functionality.