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"Gold coin (10 gm) on every booking”, “time to move from gold sector to real estate”—these are some of the messages that have been hitting the inbox of mobile phone users after the recent decline in gold prices.
The recent decline in gold prices, after years, prompted property agents or brokers to offer gold coins and other freebies related to gold with booking of a flat.
However, experts argued such offers might generate interest among people and may translate into enquiries, but may not translate into actual transactions as property buying is a long-term decision.
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Gold prices were down by about 14.3% to Rs 26,260 per 10 gm on April 20 from Rs 30,645 per 10 gm on January 1.
Harinder Singh, managing director, Realistic Realtors, said, “Freebies are always a part of a tight market situation. But property decisions won’t get impacted because of drop in gold prices. It is just another marketing strategy to attract customers through a packaged deal.”
He said this strategy might work on a short term basis only and people who have already firmed up their mind for buying a property might advance their purchasing decisions.
Sumit Jain, CEO and co-founder, Commonfloor.com, agreed that this marketing strategy may work for a new investor, but such movements will not impact the purchasing decisions of serious and long-term investors.
The real estate market started offering freebies with purchase of a flat recently. Earlier, realtors followed the trend of giving discounts.
For instance, CHD Developers is talking to hospital chains including Medanta and Max to offer medical services to customers in its upcoming residential projects in Gurgaon. Apart from this, Wave Developers is also into a slew of customer friendly services in its just announced affordable housing project Wave City in Ghaziabad. It has tied up with global IT major IBM for making the project a ‘smart city’.
Another expert tracking the sector said the time is right to buy a property and the market is expected to record a growth of 20-25% this year.
The real estate sector has been battling a slowdown over the past few years. Though there have been launch of many new projects since the beginning of this year, the tough times for the sector seems to be hardly over.
After a challenging year for the real estate sector largely due to economic factors and mispriced projects, by the end of 2012, a general confidence in the economy was gaining ground with the realization that projects would only be successful if they were launched at lucrative prices, said Samir Jasuja, founder and CEO, PropEquity.
