For Indians, traditionalists as they are, there is nothing quite like buying during the festival season. After all, it is auspicious. And with Navratras and Dussehra heralding the beginning of the festivities, which would culminate around Diwali, realtors believe this is the time to woo buyers — they believe the right frame of mind and disposition prompts early and firm decisions. Enquiries for properties increase and for some, it is a question of making an advance payment, a token investment, as it were.

Consider this:

* The Unnati Fortune Group is offering a gold coin on booking in all product verticals along with a fancy payment plan for its Noida project.

* The first 100 lucky customers of Fairwealth Breeze Homes in Bhiwadi will get a bike during Navratra.

* Some property developers are offering lucky draws, discounts and pre-launch offers, scratch cards that could win buyers a foreign trip, a car, club membership or mobile phones.

* A few others have conjured up some ingenious offers like a no EMI clause until possession.

* The Prateek Group is giving an inaugural discount for bookings for its Grand City project in Ghaziabad, next to Delhi. On offer are value added goodies like iPhone 6, 5 KVA power back up and covered car parking at Prateek Edifice, Sector 107 in Noida.

Points out Anil Mithas, chairman and managing director, Unnati Fortune Group: “Most Indians tend to link property acquisition with auspicious dates. The Navratra period is considered to be the most propitious time to invest in property. We find that during this time of the year, the atmosphere and mood is positive and the outlook happy, as it should — the bells are tingling.

In addition to the gold coin, Unnati Fortune has an attractive payment plan or the 40:30:30 scheme, in which buyers can pay 40 per cent of the money to begin with, 30 per cent to be paid after completion of the structure and the rest on possession at its project at their Sector 119, Noida project, The Aranya.

“Home buying in India is a market that is always connected to sentiments. The festive season is considered a good time to invest. Thus activity levels in the property market increase substantially during this period,” said Dhirender Gaba, chairman and managing director of Fairwealth Group. He should know.

To tap a share of the festive rush, Fairwealth said it assured a bike to the property buyers during this Navratri festival. However, this is only for the first 100 customers of Fairwealth Breeze Homes in Bhiwadi.

According to Veera Babu, office head, Hyderabad, Cushman Wakefield, like every year, the real estate sector is gearing up on expectations of good sales during the festive season. The season accounts for a significant portion of annual sales.

With macro-economic conditions looking better than they were in 2013, this year’s festive season might bring-in the much-needed cheer to the real estate sector, which has been battling subdued demand and buyer disenchantment for the past few years, he said.

Industry estimates say that between 2012 and Q2 2014, around 4,81,000 units were launched in top eight Indian cities; Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai accounted for 27 per cent, 25 and 15 per cent respectively.

Considering the subdued market conditions, there has not been much traction and developers are pinning their hopes garnering sales during this festive season, he said.

Naturally, the low-end buyer is target number one. Developers, for instance, are reducing the new launch sizes and configurations to tap buyers with limited budgets. Compact studio apartments, 1BHK, 1.5 BHKs and 2BHKs and even 2.5 BHKs are offered to suit customers with varying spending capacities, he said.

“Navratra advances the buying decision of potential customers and investors, eventually enhancing sales for this particular period,” said Prashant Tiwari, chairman, Prateek Group.

According to Tiwari, Prateek is giving an inaugural discount for bookings during this festive season for its Grand City, Sidhharth Vihar, Ghaziabad. On offer are iPhone 6, 5 KVA power back up and covered car parking at Prateek Edifice, Sector 107 in Noida. There are no EMI’s till March 2015 for Prateek Stylome (Sector 45, Noida) in addition to the iphone and power back-up. It is offering a gold coin, covered car parking and power back-up at Prateek Wisteria (Sector 77), Noida. Clearly, sky is the limit when it comes to enticing buyers.

“The enquiries for new units increase by 30 to 35 per cent during the festive season. However, it is only the beginning of a buyer-seller relationship. All of these will not translate into sales. Also, on the deliverables, the real estate projects are time consuming and very rarely will a builder have the inventory ready to be handed over to the customers on the day of the festival,” said G Narotham Reddy, general manager, business development, Cybercity Builders and Developers in Hyderabad.

Industry body Credai recently held a property show which attracted about 66,000 visitors. Cybercity has seen about 800 enquires at its stall during the trade show. “There is interest among the buyer community. But it is difficult to say how many of these will make a decision to close the deal,” he said.

Rohan Sharma, associate director, research and REIS, JLL India, says developers are offering a variety of payment schemes to attract buyers during the upcoming festive season. It is imperative for buyers to understand what each payment plan entails.

“The attraction of delayed payments, no EMIs, etc has to be viewed in conjunction with the restrictions such as inability to sell the property within a shorter investment period or before construction is completed,” said Sharma.

For instance, there are 20:80 or a 10:80:10 plan where developers ask for 20 or 10 per cent upfront payment from the buyers. Developers arrange 80 per cent loan amount through their identified banks. These provide developers with advance disbursal facility (ADF) and they pay the pre-EMIs — the interest payable on the disbursed amount — on behalf of the buyers. This is helpful for end-user buyers but can pose problems if developers stop paying the pre-EMIs. These plans can also help buyers save on rent.

In absolute terms, the buyers, however, will pay the entire amount as per his loan amount as the principal amount does not reduce till the actual EMIs have begun. Such arrangements tend to lock in the buyers till possession of the apartment as the agreement usually bars transfer during construction, said Sharma.

“Additional freebies likely to be on offer include direct discounts ranging from 5 to 12 per cent on basic selling price, electronic appliances, consumer goods, fully-fitted kitchens, gold coins, holiday packages and cars. These freebies translate into marginal discounts only. The value of such discounts is in proportion of the average ticket size of an apartment, which varies across projects,” said Sharma.

The banks too do their bit to give a little nudge to the real estate sector, at least for the festive season. Babu of Cushman and Wakefield said State Bank of India reduced interest rates for home loans above Rs 75 lakh from 10.3 per cent to 10.1 per cent for women. HDFC too has slashed interest rates. Another case in point — Canara Bank recently teamed up with select builders in Hyderabad to conduct a property show. Senior officials reached out to the builders to be part of the show, said a developer in Hyderabad.

C Shekar Reddy, president (national) of industry body Credai, said there are no big time offers or discounts in the industry as it is under stress. “The discounts come in boom time. But now, the offers are only marginal and vary with the size of the project. Also, there is no big inventory to drive the developers to offer massive discounts. The developers, learning from the mistakes during boom time, are not taking up full project at once. They are keen on implementing it in phases, based on cash flows,” he said.

“We are keeping away from discounts or freebies. However, we are pitching on the quality of the project. We are counseling people to plan their home loan as per their income and repayment capacity,” said Atul J Trivedi, chief marketing officer of Rashmi Sri Sairam Property Developers, Hyderabad.

The company has announced the Apne Dam Par scheme to allow flexi payments. This plan, Trivedi claims, would help home buyers to reduce their borrowing from 80 per cent to 30 per cent resulting in repayment tenure of five years repayment instead of the usual 15 or 20 years.

The buyers would be able to save on the interest, sometimes ranging from Rs 15-20 lakh, corresponding with the cost of the flat. Sounds good.


by B. Krishna Mohan for The Financial Chronicle