A host of real estate players are finding the world wide web (www) the ideal ground to sell their pricey projects. With the domestic market cooling off, thanks to ?unrealistic? prices and runaway home loan rates, leading developers are banking on exclusive real estate portals and other online websites to hawk their upcoming projects to NRIs.
Says K Thiagarajan, chief executive officer of Maytas Properties, ?The company has not tied up with any portal but we extensively advertise on the web. Maytas targets NRIs through the web, trade shows as also through advertisements in appropriate media in the domestic and international market. In fact 20% of the current bookings have been made by NRIs.?
Suresh Kumar Jain, managing director of Vijay Shanthi Builders, feels the company?s website gives the customers all the required information. ?We welcome NRIs to participate in our projects. Our experience has been that no one wants to buy a residential apartment without looking into various factors like the location, surroundings, development in the adjoining areas etc. There are certain exclusive real estate portals which have requested us for a tie-up and we are considering the options,? he said.
Sales and marketing head of Indu Projects Mahender Basani feels reaching out to NRI customers is not a very difficult task. ?In fact serious investors are always tagged on to online newspapers and they get to read the product launch news or the advertisements. You can also find large user groups sharing information on real estate projects. At Indu, online portals have been attempted earlier and they did generate good amount of enquiries but unfortunately not many conversions materialised,? he adds.
According to officials of Unitech Ltd, ?The company holds specific events in overseas locations showcasing the properties. We have event-specific special offers and pre-event publicity to ensure maximum footfalls. We also have an ongoing web marketing plan, through which we receive enquiries from NRI customers.?