Having established itself as the leader in Indian real estate, Square Yards is now betting big on international real estate by marketing and transacting global real estate products to investors worldwide. In the last six months, the company has facilitated sales of USD 60 million worth of international property through 200+ transactions for developers based out of Dubai, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and several other key International markets.
Talking about expansion plans, Kanika Gupta Shori, COO at Square Yards says, "International Real Estate is one of the fastest growing segment of our business. We are targeting to achieve an annual Gross Transactions Value (GTV) run rate of USD 500 million for International properties by this year end. This will lead our way to undisputed number 1 position as a global real estate aggregator"
Square Yard's is already the largest player by revenues (annual revenue run rate in excess of USD 25M) in the Indian property market and has a virtual monopoly for key NRI diaspora markets. It is now replicating its Indian success story and off plan business model globally by acquiring multi country real estate licenses. The company has entered into collaborative arrangements with leading International developers like Emaar, Danube, Damac, Berkeley, Deeyar etc.
These collaborative arrangements include having exclusive selling rights, conducting events and road-shows through its group company Bling Marketing and facilitating e-commerce transactions on its portal squareyards.com. Apart from these exclusive arrangements, the company has been fairly successful in selling unique investor friendly international products like car parks in Glasgow airport in UK, student accommodation in Liverpool, citizenship by investment in Antigua and Barbuda, mall redevelopment projects in Canada and many others.
Dubai, London, New York and Singapore are one of the most popular property destinations and some of the micro-markets in these regions offer themselves as sound investment destinations, irrespective of the overall economic situation. These are reasonably liquid and have given attractive inflation-adjusted returns in the last few years, as well as over a longer time horizon.
The Indian community with the NRIs is one of the most prolific investors in the global property markets and their share of contribution in the overall real estate market growth is rising steadily. In the year 2015 alone, Indians have invested nearly USD eight billion in US realty market, USD 1.5 billion in the London's realty market and another USD four billion in Dubai's realty market.
With its stronghold in India and aggressive growth plans for key International markets, Square Yards is well positioned to emerge as a true global real estate aggregator in next few years. The company recently opened offices in Australia and Oman and will be soon opening new offices in Canada and South Africa.