Track2Realty Exclusive: As a brand management professional, I am often asked as to which industry in India needs branding the most. Without any second thoughts, my answer is real estate. Prima facie that may sound very counterintuitive as real estate is after all a big advertising spender.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A McKinsey report to the Government of India on cost of approval had clearly pointed out that the costs incurred on account of various approvals could constitute anything up to 40 per cent of the sale value. Such is the enormity of the problem of approvals and that the challenge of negativity that we suffer from.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Analysts seem to agree with this premise that Ahmedabad has grown enormously over the past decade, due to ultra-progressive policies and intelligent development governance. The city is providing extraordinary and unprecedented returns on the real estate ROI, and has proven to be one of the most exciting investment destinations in India today. Still, it is not an investor driven market and end-users are very much active in the city market.
Track2Realty Exclusive: It is said that this sector encourages black money and corruption, which is sad and upsetting for all developers/entrepreneurs who put in their best efforts to run the business.
Track2Realty Exclusive: As the country faces problems over land acquisition, events around the issue have been tarnishing the image of India’s built environment. Across sectors — real estate, infrastructure and construction events have not been conducive enough to create a good environment for investments. In addition, fragmentation and irregularities within the market, instances of fly-by-night-operators duping the consumers, an absence of regulation over transactions and developers have given a bad name to the environment.
Track2Realty: The announcement by the markets regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to introduce a separate regulatory framework under the proposed draft SEBI (Real Estate Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2013 has brought cheers to the real estate sector. And if implemented, REITs can bring back the growth to the sector, said industry experts, who gathered at the RICS Real Estate Conference 2013 – Regaining Business Confidence. The conference was organized on 25thOctober 2013 in Mumbai.
Track2Realty-Agencies: The Centre will soon appoint real estate experts and consultants in 15 major states for helping them to prepare affordable housing policy and streamline the rules for approving realty projects, a top government official said on Wednesday, Oct 23.
Track2Realty Exclusive: It is generally believed in the sector that CSR can not be a brand driver the way other branding efforts are being evaluated in terms of ROI. Diipesh Bhagtani, Executive Director, Jaycee Homes, says that CSR alone cannot be the catalyst for brand building; there is no case study as such. CSR is seen more as a responsibility towards the society rather than a business promotion activity.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Brand building and maintaining the brand image is a big challenge for any business, and more so for in real estate where one has a direct contact with the end user. Moreover, brand positioning of the business of real estate is dependent on the overall eco system where demand and supply is dependent upon a host of external factors such as the state of the economy, government policies, etc.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a new concept in the Indian real estate and companies are going through the learning curve. Some are adopting it with greater amount of conviction, while for others it is an emerging necessary evil.