1.

INTRODUCTION

India is the world’s sixth largest economy by nominal GDP, of which 53.77% is contributed by the
service sector alone. The biggest chunk of the service sector stays occupied by the real estate industry
including housing, retail, hospitality and commercial. The housing sector alone contributes to 5-6% of
the GDP while real estate sector cumulatively contributes to roughly 9%.
Initiatives and policies like ‘Housing for all by 2022’, ‘100 Smart cities project’, ‘Sardar Patel urban
housing mission’, demonetization, RERA, etc. have significantly influenced the growth of this sector
– both positively and negatively. However, the buying tendencies shown by the consumers did not go
hand in hand with the stipulated growth of the sector. Most of the developers are introducing new
projects whilst sitting on pile of unsold inventories.
Thus, marketing and sales have a significant effect on the real estate industry indirectly and the
strategies adopted by the developers would play a major role in determining the country’s macro-
economic health.
 1.1 OBJECTIVES

 Understanding the existing and stipulated market trends in real estate of Ahmedabad and
Mumbai.
 Analysing the various demographics and understanding their effects on the real estate market of
the city.
 Analysing, comparing and critiquing the current marketing strategies adopted in both cities.
 Comparing the strategies adopted in affordable housing sector and high-end/HIG housing in both
cities.
 Lastly, proposing a marketing strategy in the mentioned sectors considering the current
realities.
 1.1 NEED FOR THE STUDY

 The unsold inventories in various metro cities range from 15-60%.

 The stipulated growth trends do not go hand in hand with the on-ground realities of the
piled-up inventories.
 The marketing strategies have not evolved with the digitization boom, and still the real
estate marketing techniques are conventional and financially heavy.
 Hence there is a need to establish the gap between the need of the consumers and the supply
from the real estate developers, and overcome it using efficient marketing strategies.
 Also, understand how and till what extent will the digital marketing affect the lead
generation and sales of real estate projects.
1.2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

 The scope of the work will be limited to cities of Ahmedabad & Mumbai.
 Case studies will be studied and compared for two different sectors viz, High
end residential building projects, and affordable housing sector.
 The scope will be limited to planning marketing strategies and its implementation.
 1.3 RESEARCH DESIGN

Defining Collecting Preparing

Selection of topic research secondary data Literature review Questionnaire Pilot survey
question draft

Final report Draft report Proposing Data analysing Data collection

strategy

Final
questionnaire

Figure 1Research Design Process

 1.4.1 Primary Data

There are two sets of research questionnaire:

Questionnaire 1 – A questionnaire designed to understand the needs of consumers

and the factors affecting their behaviour as consumers.
Questionnaire 2 – An interview questionnaire to understand the existing marketing
techniques used by developers and analyse their investments and planning in
marketing/advertising.

1.4.2 Secondary Data

 Reports on Indian real estate by market research JLL, Knight Frank, CBRE, etc.
 Census data from government websites.
 Other related websites for theories.
 Previous thesis works from CEPT University library.

2.1 Real Estate

 Real estate is property comprised of land and the buildings on it, as well as the natural resources of
the land, including uncultivated flora and fauna, farmed crops and livestock, water and mineral
deposits.
Real Estate can be broadly categories into the following types:

Residential Real Estate

Commercial Real Estate

Industrial Real Estate

Land

Considering the topic under study, the residential real estate is broadly categories as:
 Bungalows: They are independent houses that can either be stand-alone (private built and owned)
or a group of independent houses build by developers, forming a society. The bungalows are
either single or multi floored (generally up to 2 floors).

 Row Houses: Row houses are series of houses which has similar plans and located side by side to
adjacent houses and shares a common wall. They are different from villas as they are joined by
common walls. The design pattern, architecture, and appearance are similar.

 Low rise residential building: These are residential units that consist of around four to five
floors with a common area and other amenities for the residents. It has multiple residential units
in each floor with all the facilities required for living.

 High rise residential building: These are residential units that have similar facilities and
planning like that of low-rise buildings, however consist of ten or more floors.

 Townships: They have facilities and infrastructure like a town where all civic amenities such as
roads, water, electricity, school, healthcare units, garbage disposals, parks, recreational centre, etc.
are provided within a gated community. These are residential complexes constructed either by the
government or by private realtors and usually situated within suburbs.
 Figure 2 Real Estate market growth in India

The unsold inventory in various metro cities range anywhere between 15-60%. The
current realities don’t go hand in hand with the stipulated growth of the industry,
hence marketing the product would play a very significant role in the near future.
Also, marketing has been a niche and unexplored field when it comes to real estate.
This calls for a needto dwell deeper into the marketing aspects of the industry.
 Figure 3 Unsold Inventories in major Indian cities

2.3.1 The Real Estate Market System

 Parameter
s THE GENERAL
ECONOMY
Objectives,
Criteria REAL ESTATE
MARKET
Constraint
THE
Decision COMPANY
Variables

Figure 4 The Real Estate System, by Warszawski,

1996

The above figure explains the real estate system very aptly. The general economy of the country
defines its real estate market realities. The economic parameters coupled with the real estate market
lay the foundation for the objectives and project criteria of the developer. The economic factors along
with the market serve as constraints, which further define the decisions made by the company. The
approach to marketing starts with quantifying and understanding the need of consumers considering
the constraints and economic parameters.

2.3.1 WHAT IS A MARKETING STRATEGY?

It’s often said in the world of marketing that to sell a product, one must cater to a need or create one.
However, this does not stand true for real estate product. Here, the need defines the supply and not
vice versa and hence it is very important to study the micro and macro factors affecting the needs of
the consumers and catering to the on-going trend instead of developing residential units that are not
demanded by the consumers. Failing to do this leads to increasing levels of unsold inventories which
are a threat to most of the developers in metropolitan cities as of today.
 NEED SUPPLY

CUSTOMER MARKETING STRATEGY DEVELOPER

Figure 5 Marketing Strategy Schematic

Case 1: Ahmedabad

The census done in 1871 showed a population of 116,900. By 1911 there were over a
quarter of a million people and over a half million by the 1941 census. The city passed the
1 million resident mark by the 1961 census with over 1.1 million residents. The city has
grown by about one and a half million people by the last census in 2011. A nearby military
base and government institutions bring people from all over India to Ahmedabad and fuel
city growth. By 2021, there could be nearly 9 million people residing in Ahmedabad.
Total no. of House Holds: 11,79,823
Total Population: 55,77,940
Total Male Population: 29,38,985
Total Female Population: 26,38,955
Total Population between 0 to 6 years: 6,21,034

Table 1 Ahmedabad population demographics

10000000
8000000
6000000
4000000
2000000
0
1871 1911 1941 1961 2011 2021*E
Population in Numebrs Expon. (Population in Numebrs)

Figure 6 Population growth of Ahmedabad

The growing urbanization and development in Ahmedabad has attracted thousands of

migrants to this business city every year. This has created a huge demand in real
estate over the years.
However, the declining poverty rates have not been able to keep up with the inflation
rates, because of which more and more ABL (above poverty line) people have been
pulled in BPL (below poverty line) category. Because of such complex economic
realities, simple income averages cant be used to
 The population living in slums/challis is shown as yellow bars while the population living outside
slums is shown as blue bars. Predictably, the slum population is mostly clustered at the left part of the
graph for the 2 years measured. However, we can see an overlap between the income of the more
affluent households living in slums and the income of the less affluent living in formal housing. Also,
it is clear from the population trends that the population will increase exponentially. Hence the spread
of the overlap shown if the second graph is bound to increase over the time. Hence, this will represent
dual consumer behavior for the same set of income groups.
determine the affordability of people for real estate. Given below are some interesting
charts showing the income distribution over span of 2 time periods, viz, 2001 and 2011
respectively.