How Can Developers Bring Buyers Back To The Real Estate Market

An unhappy buyer is largely responsible for India’s real estate sector undergoing a price correction right now. The question that arises then is how did a real estate loving nation stop buying homes. The genesis of this problem lies in how business was being done traditionally.

Before the developer community started making serious efforts to deliver what it promised, it was busy launching new projects, one after another, without completing the ones already launched. The sector managed to get game-changing laws only after the property market hit a low that the government could no longer ignore. In short, the buyer stopped buying homes because his needs were not being respected by the sector that was chasing investors. Today, all parties concerned, financial institutions included, are busy making innovative plans to make sure buyers come back to the market.

This bleak phase may be over soon – data available with PropTiger.com show home sales may improve after falling five per cent in the last quarter of the financial year 2018-19, especially with developers shifting focus towards completing the pending projects while exercising extreme caution towards new launches.

This bleak phase in India’s real estate market has taught the sector some valuable lessons. That consumer is the king is an age-old dictum which the developers seemed to have overlooked for long. “If developers once entertained the thoughts that they could run the market on their own terms, they have learnt their lesson, the hard way, that the customer is king. Unfortunately, relearning this simple fact has cost several builders their very existence. This, however, has prepared those who survived, for the future course,” says Sunil Kakkar, a Gurgaon-based branding and marketing professional.

What do developers need to do to better service their customers?

Data and speculation are two major factors based on which housing projects have been launched in the past few years. While depending on data is a wise thing to do, projects can't be planned without feeling the pulse of the market. Time, money and resources must be employed to gauge what consumers really want. Developers attend to their buyers only till the agreement is signed. After that, a buyer will find it quite hard to get response in case of a query. That must change. Setting unrealistic project completion dates is another recipe for disaster. Also, under the provisions of the real estate law, builders will have to pay a penalty for delays. If the sector has to survive, it must reverse its trend of over promising and under-delivering.