During the lockdown, GrowEmpire.com did a survey in Maharashtra. We conducted the survey to know, how COVID-19 is affecting the Real Estate industry. We were overwhelmed by seeing so many builders and developers participating. We are thankful to all the participants to take out their time and share their valuable opinions.
Note: For a better understanding of results we have reduced the sample to 100.
Q1) Is COVID-19 going to affect the real estate industry?
It was very obviously still only 75.5% out of total responded YES, that the industry got affected. Many on-going projects were stopped due to safety reasons, the supply-chain was broken and manpower was absent, sales of all projects were pending.
Q2) How much time according to you is required to stabilize the real estate market?
According to responses recorded majority thought, it will take about 4 - 6 months or near about till December to stabilize the market and as we already are about to come out from the pandemic we are observing progress gradually in the construction and marketing sectors.
Q3) Are you going to reduce property prices post lockdown?
Property price was the major aspect in which everyone expected some changes. But this was a totally independent decision of builders and developers to drop their prices, so some have opted to drop their prices by 20% and 10% while some opted to stay at the same prices up to a certain period.
Q4) Are you receiving any inquiry in Lockdown and is it a serious buyer?
More than 50% of people are inquiring about properties in which 20% of the people were serious buyers and were actually interested in buying homes. The other 30% were online property crawlers who were inquiring casually. Thus we can observe many people are inquiring online because they cannot inquire physically due to social distancing.
Q5) Are you with line-up customers who can close deals and will sustain the next 2-3 months?
The majority of realtors currently has serious buyers who are ready to buy homes and are ready to sustain over 2-3 months to close the deals. Where there are some customers who are lined up but not interested in buying this behavior may have occurred due to collateral changes caused by Pandemic.
Q6) Do you think the lineup customers are still interested or you need more customers?
70% of realtors have lined-up customers and out of that 40% are still interested in properties whereas few of them required to follow up and builders need more customers and lead to sustain and progress in the current situation.
Q7) Which marketing strategy will you apply after lockdown?
According to responses after lockdown majority of realtors are going to use both offline and online strategy equally for the marketing of their product, but there were almost no interested people in doing offline marketing only and shifting towards online marketing is observed because keeping in mind the current situations and past reports buyers are more likely to search products online. Thus online marketing is considered the best strategy for the business.
Q8) Have you closed any deals in Lockdown?
Very few numbers of deals were closed in Lockdown. Deals were affected due to pandemic and the reasons could be endless. But in the midst of crisis, some of the builders manage to crack the deals to those who have already visited the property and were following up.
Q9) Are you in touch with your Line-up customers?
Yes, the majority did a great job of being in touch with customers. Being in touch with customers should be a priority to all the realtors as customers may lose interest in the deal and may get diverted from their buying decision.
We also asked some descriptive type questions in our survey and we received the various type of answers from all the professionals, some of them were positive, negative, serious, and humorous here we are sharing a summary of the best and relevant answers:
Q10) What is needed to be done during this lockdown period?
During lockdown everybody has a different perspective while some decided to stay home, some thought of spreading awareness, some tried to build and maintain relationships with clients, where some spent their time learning new business tactics. Some of the answers are as below:
“Client Funnel needs to broaden which would ultimately broaden the pipeline to close the deals, also refund policies against cancellation needs to be strengthened”.- “Prateek Telang”
“Relationship with Existing and Current clients, Fetching Or Sorting Database, Online Branding, timesharing Family and Relatives, Fitness and good health with meditation”.-“Pravin Ladkat”
“Take care of laborers and their wellbeing as they gonna be backbone post lockdown. Labors are going to play a key role. If u don't take care of them and motivate them now it will be difficult to hold them post lockdown. We also need to take advantage to define culture in organizations, strategies to adopt new technology, gaining confidence among employees and stakeholders... Seriously it's also the best time to impart online training to employees to adopt new skills and technology”.-“Faizi Ata”
“During this period we have to make them believe that this is the time where you have to invest because the builder is giving good discounts. Make them understand that price will go high once this lockdown will over. The salesperson should know how to solve all the queries over the phone over the online calls like Zoom calls. The builder should get the video of every single thing which is necessary for the client to understand.
Once he will understand the all over project over the phone like location, construction work, flat area, floor plans, cost sheet, etc closing then there will be no hesitation to ask him about the booking amount”
–“Shivani Sandeep Karde”
Q11) After Lockdown ends which Marketing Strategy will you Apply?
“Owing to the consequences of Covid-19, the post Lockdown scenario will result in slowed-down site visits and thus, sales & business too will be slow.
Online Marketing Strategies (Digital Marketing Gamut) will be surely beneficial to reach out to potential clients. Companies will have to launch online site visit schedules to avoid crowding.
It'll become absolutely essential for Companies to attract & convince potential clients that they are happy to serve them with the same zeal, quality product, value additions. The Lockdown will just add to the vigor & positive attitude of companies who genuinely value their customers”. – “Ranjit Singh Negi”
“Well, I think more about online I'm going to do as people must be traveling here and there so I'm sure they won't be able to read newspapers or hoardings. SMS blasts, mails, property portals, etc. are the earliest way to reach out clients”.-“ Ritika Tripathee”
“Online marketing such as Social media, Google ad words, advertising portals, References, offline marketing, etc. Also tie-up with property dealership/channel partners more and more”. -“Rahul Kadam”
Q12) What is the Plus point for the Real estate after Pandemics?
“Few of the plus points for the Real Estate Industry due to the Pandemic are as follows:
1) Companies have the opportunity to groom their employees by engaging them and upgrading their knowledge & skill-sets by Training & Development.
2) Companies will have ample time to scrub their data, information & past records to create & formulate reports for better analysis, decision making & business propositions.
3) Companies will be bound to focus on Digital Marketing, Innovation, Value Added Propositions and more pragmatic & result oriented strategies to be in & /or ahead of the competition”.–“ Ranjit Singh Negi”
“It’s a real tangible asset...The price never goes down by more than 8-10% but there is no limit on incremental value over the years. It is the safest investment with a rental yield as a second income. Stock markets have crashed to a 40% low, such crashes don’t happen in real estate. People want to have their own home so they can feel safe and secure during such times”.
-“ Mustafa Rassawala”
Q13) What did you learn from this pandemic for your Business?
“No marketing No deal”.-“ Prathamesh Jadhav”
“Well, I have seen and analyzed a lot of things sitting at home and receiving calls. This industry never stops. We have to have patience and need to trust ourselves. Real estate always grows. We already have seen a lot of ups and down but we never stopped. Isn't it?”–“Rithika Tripaathe”
“I learned that even in this hard time we can close the deal but only if we can understand people. And also it’s not necessary to know about any client to call then to visit the site, we can learn about them over the call also So half of the word has already done if we know about our client”.
-“ Neeraj Dwivedi”
Q14) Is there Any Special Suggestion for Real Estate Industries?
“3D interactive simulation / VR of projects”.– “PRATIKSHA BANDIERA”
“Since the market is an unstable price protection policy for customers would make a large impact and will not only drive business but will also help us gain brand loyalty from self-use customers as well as investors”.–“Prateek Telang”
“Let's understand that most of the buyers belong to the working-class category. This Lockdown may impact their jobs to a substantial extent which will impact their buying decisions.
Due to these challenging situations and extended crises, it's very important to devise innovative ideas so that the lost momentum is recovered & restored. Sales are bound to slow down; however, the companies must work upon lucrative schemes, offers & rewards to attract improved booking & better business.
"LET'S JUST REMEMBER & REMIND OURSELVES...CRISES BRINGS BETTER OPPORTUNITIES & REWARDS." –“ Ranjit Singh Negi”
Conclusion:
We saw a few parameters and tried to analyze how real estate is affected by Pandemic.
- We may or may not see a fall in property prices.
- Around 6 months will require stabilizing situations.
- Deals are getting faster because of serious buyers are in the market.
- Deals were not getting closed in lockdown.
- Online marketing strategy is going to be more use full for builders.
- Builders need proper financial and marketing plan post lockdown.
