Real Estate Market in India & Real estate group buying Interview with Regrob founders

Real Estate Market in India is observing a new trend with Real estate group buying. Here is an overview of indian Real estate market and interview with Regrob.com founders Mr. Ashish Kaushik and Mr. Vivek Raman. Regrob.com is leading real estate group buying postal in India.

The real estate industry is one of the fastest growing industries in our economy, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of approximately 30 – 35 %. A Rs 80000 crore industry at present, it is expected to touch Rs. 320000 crore in the next five years. The growth of the real estate industry has its key drivers in strong demand fundamentals of IT / ITES industry, strong manufacturing and services industry. Rapid urbanization is fuelling Indian residential sector, There is an estimated requirement of 80 million housing units over the next fifteen years and 200 million sq. ft. of office space over the next five years. residential property market in India constitutes almost 75% of the real estate market in terms of value. Low per capita housing stock, rising disposable income coupled with easy availability of finance from the housing finance companies and banks are driving demand in this sector. Also, Average age of housing loan borrowers have decreased to 30- 35 years from 40- 45 years a few years ago, indicating a younger buying threshold.

Real estate industry despite its rapid growth is a sunrise industry in india, is plagued with many problems encountered by consumers or end-users, developers and real estate investors. End users are not very familiar with real estate working style and are always suspicious of the practices of developer and broker nexus. They keep negotiating with builder and broker about the discount and all other costs of buying their dream home. If they book their home In a project initially, they have to bear the completion and project delay risk with the builder and if they buy at completion stage they end up paying exorbitant prices for the unit that was a lot cheaper initially. Even with builder the problems are plenty, without being able to gauge the demand of their project, the builder have to incur huge costs to market their project and commission to brokers. There are so many cases where builders have dropped prices phenomenally to group of buyers. In these group buying deals the buyer gets their home at much cheaper prices to market rates and simultaneously the builder get to clear their inventory much faster without incurring various costs of marketing and commissions.

Regrob.com which is an acronym for real estate group buying is India’s first group buying platform dedicated to real estate. It is a platform that effectively solves this problem for customers and builders. It lets people form a buying group for a particular project and then negotiates with builder about the best possible rates for the group.

At regrob.com, they are working towards a price regime in real estate that is evenly balanced between builder and consumers. It’s a very common scenario in real estate that individuals buy the same piece of property at a much higher price than that by a real estate buying group. A buying group has the power of numbers which makes a builder lower his price tag to group buys. For the individual buyer it’s very time consuming and costly to form a group which can negotiate with the concerned builder, even that group has to have same buying needs to focus on a project. Regrob.com is a solution for buyer’s group forming need to have a better buying discount and get other costs saved. At regrob.com you can go to the website, find your chosen project and register in that buying group. In this concerned and focused buyer group people from all locations will register, after attaining a critical mass of buyers, regrob talks with builder and negotiate a better deal for our group buyers. After negotiating with builder regrob intimate their buyer group about the price negotiated with a deadline to buy.

Sites like regrob.com is pretty effective and good for builders also apart from negotiating great deals for its customers. Other than saving huge costs for builders there are other advantages also. Encouraged by the discounts offered in group buying sites users are likely to turn into customers. Regrob has much faster promotion than traditional marketing system. Group buying sites use newsletter subscription to promptly announce new deals. Big discounts are greatly appreciated by people, they are most likely to be attracted to builder’s brand and possibly turn into loyal customers. One other and very big effect of regrob.com is that traffic is targeted and business receives valued customers.

“Regrob.com saves its members from the pain of negotiating with builder or broker and gets them the best possible rates which were available to some big corporate houses or societies till now” says Ashish Kaushik, Co-founder of Regrob.com. Regrob has been founded by Ashish Kaushik, an IIM alumuni and Vivek, management graduate fron ICFAI, Hyderabad. Both founders have been in financial service industry for long. Ashish says “ the result for regrob.com has been very encouraging and the customers are pretty happy buying through regrob.”

Interview with Regrob.com founders Mr. Ashish Kaushik and Mr. Vivek Raman

1-Is it true that a new trend of bulk/group buying has started in Mumbai real estate housing market ? If yes, since when and what are the reasons behind ?

Answer- The concept of group buying model is not new, and has been applied in different industries, from cars to baby merchandise to pet care products. Even in real estate industry people have been forming buying groups in smaller manner, there have been societies and other corporate buying groups formed to buy real estate but this was very unorganized and an common individual person didn’t have access to these groups. Now, the organized trend is catching on in the real estate sector, with sites such as Regrob.com offering group deals on real estate projects in India.

2-Is this a temporary phenomenon because of large unsold stock ? Will it stop once the market revives?

Answer- According to a recent data, there are over 100 million unsold inventories in the market and the developers are waiting to liquidate them. No wonder, it is attracting the builders, brokers and buyers into group buying options. In our opinion this is a way of transaction that’ll lead in future. Even in a seller’s market the option of group buying is a good one as It definitely eases the customer’s mind in his dilemma of whether he’s getting the right price on his purchase or whether he should buy or not. He just has to come to the site, show his interest in the deal and he’s reasonably sure that the price he’ll be getting is best price.

3-Who are these bulk buyers – are they real estate agents, investors, corporate houses or actual individual users ? What is the modus operandi they follow ?

Answer- Presently almost all the people who are buying thorugh regrob.com are individual users however we are in talks with some corporate houses and investors to buy through us, till recently this clientele has been directly dealing with builders but they are eager to form a buying group through us as we are able to form a larger group than any of these themselves and bigger group promises better discounts.

4-Since when you have been involved in group buying in Mumbai market ? Who are the developers you have had such deals with and what generally is the discount range

Answer- We’ve entered Mumbai market almost 6 months back and we’ve deals with builders like Nirmal lifestyle, Goldstar group, Aiyor group etc.

5-How does this work – you form the group of buyers from those who approach you or buyers form a group and then come to you ? What are your charges to buyers and developers?

Answer– We form a homogeneous group of people from all localities and then we negotiate with builder on behalf of this group. At regrob.com a customer just has to go to the website, find his chosen project and register in that buying group. In this concerned and focused buyer group people from all locations will register, after attaining a critical mass of buyers, we at regrob talks with builder and negotiate a better deal for our group buyers. After negotiating with builder we intimate our group about the price negotiated with a deadline to buy. In case that property of his choice is not there he may give us a suggestion of his property, we run the deal on our website and form a group for that chosen property. We do not charge any brokerage from buyers, we charge our brokerage fees from builders and these are negotiated before the deal is tipped.

6-What are the benefits to buyers apart from discounted price? I am told there are certain disadvantages in such bulk buying because developers often do not offer best flats in terms of location/utility etc.

Answer- The benefits apart from discounted prices are smooth transactions as you have a dependable brokerage house between you and builder. Better customer service provided to you as you are part of a big buying group and you also have another way to solve your problems via regrob. The problem of not providing best locations to group buying companies comes in the later stages of project construction but initially when the sales of project is uncertain, this is not a problem as builders are willing to give customers their preferred units. In later stages this is a real problem but can be tackled by co-operation of builder.

7-What are the advantages to the developers ? Are there any disadvantages

Answer- Advantages of using regrob.com for builders

• Huge cost savings for builders in terms of marketing, sales and capital costs as the inventory is sold at a much faster pace than traditional marketing system.
• Great deals for customers. Encouraged by the discounts offered in regrob.com, users are likely to turn into customers.
• Fast promotion. Regrob uses newsletter subscription to promptly announce new deals.
• Potentially, buiders may gain repeated customers by the smoothness and consistent communication by regrob.com.
• Traffic is targeted and business receives valued customers.
• Popularity of regrob.com is exponentially growing. It’s affordable to have your products listed in regrob
• People tend to buy in groups and with regrob they are most likely to bring in other people into the group too, it’ll create strong word of mouth for your brand.

8-Please provide brief details about company, when it was formed, location, operational areas and unique features if any

Regrob.com is a fast growing real estate group buying website in India dealing in real estate group deals. Regrob takes its name from Real estate group buying. It’s a dedicated real estate group deals site, It aggregates the individual buyers to form a group which gets a group buying price from the builder’s side. Presently regrob.com is covering Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Dehradun etc.

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