How Technology Rejoiced Real Estate Business Industry In The Year 2014
The year 2014 was a challenging year for the real estate industry and it suffered due to high prices, over supply, low demand, rising inventory and slagging economy. The H1 2014 was especially tough considering the fact that sales volume and new launches dipped by approximately 25 percent as compared to H1 2013. However, all was not lost for the real estate sector and the new technology in the form of internet brought much needed relief. A report by Google titled, “Real Estate in India – The digital influence” has come out with a thrilling disclosure that real estate transactions worth 43 billion dollars are directly influenced by the internet. This confirms the fact that rise of technology has led to digital evolution in India and given way to new modes of online transaction to rejoice real estate industry in 2014 –
Online Property Websites
With offline sales not taking place, the developers took help of technology to increase sales volume and improve their balance sheets. With the increased internet penetration and the number of Indians using internet to transact increasing by each day, the builders have now realized the strength of online channel and have started selling through their websites. In addition to this, having own property website helps them to connect better with their costumers and develops a trust factor. This is confirmed by the fact that Mumbai based Lodha group sold over 100 flats for their Palva township project in Navi Mumbai through its online portal.
Online Shopping Festivals
The strength of technology can be understood by the fact that several builders are now lining up to sell their projects online through Google’s great Online Shopping festival (GOSF). Several prominent developers lined up to showcase both affordable as well as luxury housing and kept the booking amount as low as 299 rupees. The 2014 GOSF was highly successful and Tata Housing was able to sell property worth 130 crore rupees during the 3 day online shopping festival. While, Purvankara Projects was able to get 507 bookings thus rejoicing the realty industry.
Online Real Estate Portals
The rise of technology has led to the evolution of online real estate portals like Housing.com, which is India’s leading property portal that facilitates buying, selling and renting of all real estate assets. It enables you to post property for sale/rent at no cost and offers guidance and support at each step of your transaction. The site is a one stop property solution for common people and developers, alike. It offers several value added services like 3D map services, price heat map, home loan eligibility calculators, listing decay, etc. to make the property transactions easy and convenient. With more than 50 percent decisions of buying property being influenced by internet research, the online real estate portals have been key contributors to the realty segment.
Mobile Platforms
Internet giant, Google in its report has recently stated that two out of three searches in Google are done with the purpose of getting best deals in property transactions. Out of the total searches, whooping 40 percent are on mobile platforms which make it a better medium for realty searches.
