This Is What Home Buyers Are Looking For Online

Buying homes online is slowly and gradually gaining traction among potential home buyers. Though not many Indians are buying homes entirely online, many elements of home search, which were earlier physical, are now been taken care of online. Elements like property price evaluation, neighbourhood research and even finding home loans, have turned exclusively online. Though many home buyers still go back to consulting their friends and family, but online has now become the initial source of property search.

Here are a few crucial stages of home buying that have shifted online:

Property search
At large, property portals in India have evolved as repositories of property listing. Many real estate developers, established or new, are now listing a wide range of properties online. The listing includes property pictures, size of apartments, amenities offered, neighbourhood details and others. Home buyer can always zero down their search to a few among thousands by using filters.
While physically searching for a property meant visiting and talking to a number of real estate agents, this is now being taken over by online home search.

Fixing site visits
When buying a property, every home buyer wants to visit the site. To suffice this need, property portals now provide the possibility to prefix site visits for home buyers, based on their convenience. After the home buyer expresses interest in the property, he/she can arrange site visits either individually or in groups. PropTiger.com, one of India's leading real estate advisor, lets home buyer directly fix the site visit on the website and one of the team member accompanies the home buyer during the visit/visits. Before a site visit, the advisor also lets you view the apartment in 3D and some even in 4D, online.

Comparison/evaluation
You might have found a perfect property but you still want to browse for a better deal or service. Property portals will not push you towards the one you have expressed interest in. In fact, home buyers can see multiple choices of homes within the budget, specifications and locality. Portals also have tools that provide details such as number of homes available, neighbourhood details, livability index, modes of transportation, among others. This helps in making an informed choice.

Discounts and offers
After you have expressed interest in making a home purchase decision, online portals use different ways to keep you abreast of all the developments in the area and also offers and discounts by developers, using emails, phone calls, text messages and others, which ever mode you opt for.

Home loan calculation
Online portals also allow you to calculate your home loan using different online tools. All you have to do is add details such as age, annual earnings, old loans and insurance, and the tool/calculator will suggest you the loan, property and also equated monthly instalments (EMI). This eases the home buying decision, which can otherwise be done only by visiting a banker with all your personal details. That brings down two weeks of decision making down to five minutes.

Check on property status
During or after buying a home you can also take stock of the construction progress online, by regularly checking on the status. How much has the project progressed? Is it likely to reach its possession target? How many vacant apartments are there in the building? All these questions can be answered and tracked online without the help of an agent. Details that are published online carry more weight as compared to sales catalogues that are distributed by developers and verbal promises by real estate brokers and developers.

Complaints
Complaints about a developer or a rogue real estate broker largely go unaddressed. But, online home buying might reduce this as user comments on a locality, developer or a building can be consulted before making a decision. The home buyer could find reviews regarding progress of a building, amenities, and others. You can get this information on the project's page even before you plan a site visit.

(Katya Naidu has been working as a business journalist for the last nine years, and has covered beats across banking, pharma, healthcare, telecom, technology, power, infrastructure, shipping and commodities)