Impact of e-commerce on Indian Real Estate

By Mr. Ravindra Pai, Managing Director, Century Real Estate

India is one of the fastest growing markets for the e-commerce industry. With many industries like apparel and fashion being influenced by e-commerce, real estate industry is not far behind. Real estate is an information driven industry. With the Indian home buyers getting younger and more tech-savvy, they research about the properties, developers, facilities and amenities accessible at the property online. With technological advances like virtual reality, buyers choose to visit the prospective homes virtually prior to actually visiting the site.

According to industry sources, India has been ranked the second largest online market in the world where 20 million Indians search for homes online every month. Almost 53% of the total real estate transactions in India are influenced by the online portals.

House buying trend

Growth of e-commerce business in India has seen an increase in salaried class investing in purchase of property. Home buyers desire to own a house in a residential locality with modern amenities. The choice of owning a house is also influenced by annual income of the family. Real estate pricing has seen an increase in the cities where employees recruited by the e-commerce companies to service the customers are strategically placed.

Real estate portals

Impact of e-commerce on home buyers is not limited. There are various real estate portals catering to a number of home buyers today. These portals reach out to people looking for specifications like duplex apartments, affordable housing, luxury amenities and follow up on the response with personal contact. The impact of e-commerce is also on the real estate brokers who have been developing their marketing strategies according to the trend of e-commerce industry.

Warehousing and logistic real estate

The demand for warehousing and logistics real estate has seen an increase over the years. Big e-commerce companies seek warehousing facilities depending on the scale of operations. The companies require massive distribution centers with accessible locations, ability to operate round the clock and meet customer’s needs for fast product delivery. Some of the customers will not only be based in metro cities but also in tier II and tier III cities. The warehousing real estate has also seen a demand in these cities.

Non-metro cities

E-commerce has not only opened opportunities in metro cities, but also tier II and III cities. A well connected non-metro city which provides good infrastructure, governance by the authorities is one of the places which has seen expansion of the e-commerce industry over a period of time. With e-commerce having no boundaries, real estate portals not only cater to metro cities but also non-metro cities as well.

Co-work space

Co-working space is redefining the commercial real estate. Many e-commerce players outsource the technology and supply to industry players. The industry players operate out of such co-working space which has seen an increase in demand in the recent past.

Conclusion

Listing of properties on e-commerce portals is not enough, marketing is also very important. Developers offering quality benefits, creating transparency in the market place make a huge difference. Overall, e-commerce has not only impacted many industries but also has influenced the home buyers decision making as well.

Corporate Comm India(CCI Newswire)