India Focus: India's first realty supermarket opened

It has been long proclaimed that even in the real estate industry, the consumer has come to be king. The developments at the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (Credai) held in Bangalore from November 22 to 24 and the inauguration of the country's first real estate supermarket, Propmart in the same city have only served to support the claim.

Propmart is a concept whose time has come. While primarily, it will be a real estate brokerage firm that will help you find a suitable property, arrange for a loan and ensures post-sale consumer satisfaction, it has various props that come with it. A property portal,
www.propmart.com.

The portal, already functioning, attracts 50,000 visitors a month. A large chunk of these come from abroad. Then, there is PropGuide, the country's first national comprehensive real estate magazine also distributed in the UAE, with over 6,000 property listings every month.

And, there is Propcall, a telemarketing division that has trained executives in India and the UAE answering questions on various projects and on the real estate market in the country.

With offices in Dubai and plans to set up shop in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, the company has also set up help desks at several corporate offices like HLL and IBM.

John Kuruvilla, chief executive and managing director, Propmart, said: "Today's customers, who are hard pressed for time, seek convenience, choice, fast service and complete information.

That is why customers prefer to shop at supermarkets of multi-brand outlets. We decided to help our customers by offering them a wide range of home and corporate properties along with home loans from HDFC, legal assistance through alliance partners, property insurance, all under a single umbrella."

If Propmart is offering the consumer a large variety of choices at one stop, the Credai has been focusing towards professionalising the hitherto unorganised real estate business.

The three-day convention at Bangalore has focused on issues ranging from infrastructure for economic growth, public-private participation, financing and real estate trends, to evolving standards and training.

The convention, "Building the property vision," seeks to serve as a platform for the real estate industry to address the key issues relating to the industry.

Already, at the inauguration of the convention, the association managed to extract an assurance from the Karnataka Urban Development Minister, D.K. Shiva Kumar, of a new housing policy in this southern state in the next few months.

Shiva Kumar who pointed out that Karnataka was one of the first states to scrap the urban land ceiling, computerise the land records and introduce the Bhoomi programme added that the state was in the process of building 15 lakh houses for the poor. However, on the tricky issue of stamp duty, the Minister treads softly.

Karnataka has among the highest stamp duties in the country. The state will reduce the stamp duty only if the Union government compensates the state for the losses, he said.

The Credai Chairman, G.L. Raheja urged the government to provide incentives to the salaried class because it was this segment that was fuelling the growth of the construction industry today.

The construction industry, according to him, world wide was one of the major contributors to the GDP, while in India, its contribution was about one to two per cent, this despite the fact that it was the largest industry in the country in terms of employment, after agriculture.

Though the Credai convention ended on an upbeat note, it yet to be seen if the mood continues into the next year. If the consumer, really is king or an emperor with no clothes.