Realty Redefined

Monday, September 20, 2010

Changing nature of the real estate domain : How does it impact your business ?

Practically any one can start a real estate consulting business but building a consolidated and scalable business out of real estate consulting is no child's play !

How do I build a scalable infrastructure for my real estate business ?
How do I focus on leads that are genuine and exclusively for me ?
How do I distinguish myself from the infinite new entrants in this business ?
How can I showcase my credibility and neighborhood expertise ?

The answer is that you need a very well ranking real estate portal that can generate prospects for you through an excellent display of properties and projects from your neighborhood. This portal should be well equipped with prospect generating features that can convert visitors into prospects. This portal should position you as the neighborhood expert and divert all NRI's and expatriate traffic looking for real estate in your neighborhood to you.
This will pay huge dividends in terms of a large funnel of genuine leads for you from different parts of the world.
Now that we have a consolidated lead generating mechanism in place, a CRM system to manage leads effectively and improve service levels becomes mandatory. This makes your business scalable to handle huge volume of leads from different sources.
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The system that will enable you to achieve all of the above is Realty Redefined ==> http://www.realtyredefined.com
Intuitive Project Display with prospect generation sample : http://www.devaenterprises.co.in/project.html
Intuitive Property Display with prospect generation sample: http://www.siddhantproperties.com/index.php?option=com_rrsearch&view=allpropertiesphp&Itemid=70
Realty Redefined Consultants CRM : http://www.realtyredefined.com/realestateagentsoftware-producttour
Realty Redefined Developers CRM : http://www.realtyredefined.com/products/real-estate-developers-software
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Listen, there's something else you should know...
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... The real estate searches on Google are going up everyday
... People are selling real estate on facebook using links to their website
... Very few Realtors are enjoying the full NRI / Expatriate lead pool
... Very few in the industry understand the difference between a website and a prospect portal
... All the big companies like REBI, Colliers International, Knight Frank, Better Homes, Remax, HDFC Realty, DHFL and RELIANCE are entering real estate
... Real Estate market might go bearish leaving the unprepared out of business

IT'S GETTING TOUGHER BY THE DAY.

DESPITE how tough it can be outthere... you CAN make serious money online when you know where the money is.

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Here's the answer >>> http://realtyredefined.com
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Go Online !

I am writing this blog to enumerate some of the learning's that we have had over the past 2 years trying to create software systems which help realtors market and sell online. I would be talking about two things, hence the two parts.

In the first part I will try and enumerate all the advantages and reasons why realtors should start selling online.
In the second part I will enumerate all the mechanisms provided by Realty Redefined to help realtors sell online.

Advantages & Reasons why Realtors should start selling online.

The industrial revolution dramatically changed the entire scenario of mass production, an even bigger revolution is currently underway viz. The Internet Revolution. The Internet Revolution has even more dramatically changed how business is conducted all over the world. The productivity gains that modern businesses have had due to the world wide web are tremendous, the spontaneous dissemination of information is crucial to the manner in which decisions are taken today. Given these circumstances, online marketing through the internet has become the preferred mode of increasing consumer awareness of products and services offered by a lot of businesses. Hence traditional mediums of marketing like Television, Cinema, Print Medium & a lot more have taken a back seat. Statistics on recent trends indicate a paradigm shift in the choices made by businesses & marketing managers to use online marketing as their primary marketing strategy.

Given the above arguments it is not very difficult to understand that marketing and selling real estate online is also going to be of primary importance to a lot of businesses in the Real Estate industry, hence below I try to enumerate some quantified points to highlight the importance and the need to "Go Online" for the real estate professional.

Some stats around the internet phenomenon are cited below.

Over 35% of the world population has access to the internet, this number is only going to increase in the future.
For the average middle class Indian living in an urban setting, the internet is the preferred medium at work and the 2nd preferred medium at home.
The average Indian consumer is getting more and more aware of what they want, and hence they do not sit back for marketing campaigns to reach them. They are very proactive in terms of trying to get all the information that they really need.
Below is a list of some of the most hotly searched keywords in India. The figures below are a monthly stat only for India. Besides the below there are a large number of keywords that are hotly searched across different cities in India.

homes for sale: 68,000,000 per month.
property: 20,400,000 per month.
homes for rent: 9,140,000 per month

Now that some of these stats have proved the fact that there is definitely a lot of scope for online marketing/sales let me go on and enumerate some of the advantages of selling online. Primarily there are three main advantages of selling online.

Cost: All businesses are created with the intent of value creation and hence profit making, the cost that one has to bear to create and implement traditional marketing campaigns are completely non practical when compared with what one would have to do for doing online marketing. To start an online marketing program, all a business needs is to develop a website that has content enriched with keywords that attract prospects to your website. The cost of doing this is far less than what one would have to do to start a traditional marketing campaign. Basically more people visiting the site would mean more people being converted to qualified prospects and hence more business. All that a business needs to start attracting this traffic on their sites is a good consultant with solid experience in SEO (Search Engine Optimization)/Online Marketing/Keyword Research/Competition Analysis and providing the right kind of content to pull the relevant traffic.
Widest Reach: The second factor is the actual reach of the campaign. In traditional marketing, a business owner will not have any idea of how many potential customers he is actually reaching. For example if there are 500,000 readers of a particular newspaper, how will anybody know as to what percentage of the actual readers have noticed your marketing artifact. Truth is that there is no way of measuring this. As against this in online marketing, powerful web analytics keeps track of the traffic your website is pulling based on which you can calculate conversion figures.
Conversion Rate: The third factor is the biggest difference between online marketing and traditional marketing. This is the manner in which the customer makes a choice. In the former, a campaign is addressed to a general audience, looking for potential customers while in the latter it is the customer who is coming to you. He or she already knows what he or she is looking for and it thus makes it easier to convert the visitor to a customer.

Given the above arguments I hope to have given enough reasons for all to believe that getting a bite in the online marketing pie is the way to go for all Realtors, as time goes by and more and more people start using the Internet, this is going to be even more important. In the second part I will try and focus on features available within Realty Redefined that can help our customers do all of the above and a lot more. Hence in short Realty Redefined is the complete online marketing package.

Realty Redefined is on the Cloud !!!

Recently we successfully migrated all our servers and infrastructure from individual hosting providers to the "Cloud". Our 2 month long efforts finally culminated in both Realty Redefined Consultants edition and Developers edition being moved to the "Amazon Cloud". We thought we will share some advantages and benefits that our end clients will enjoy because of this move to the cloud. From the perspective of a technologist, moving to the cloud has a lot of significance. It has even more significance for businesses when they start accessing their business productivity and management applications on the cloud. Some of the more important advantages of being on the cloud are enumerated below.

Pay for what you Use: From the business perspective, one of the biggest advantages of accessing Realty Redefined on the cloud is that you end up paying only for what you need. While this is true, you also get to scale according to your needs. This means that adding new users to your Realty Redefined account is child's play, and your new user will be able to start using the application within a matter of minutes. Realty Redefined on the cloud also means that you are in the driving seat, because of the yearly subscription model, you get to pay only as long as you think we are adding value to your business. This helps companies avoid return on investment (ROI) risk and uncertainty. Should you feel that the service does not work for you then you can easily cancel the subscription.
Version Upgrades: Realty Redefined is continuously on the move. What this means is that we are always thinking of new features and IT enabled services that will help our clients improve their profitability and manage their businesses more efficiently. Because of this we are constantly providing new features in Realty Redefined. If you are on the cloud, you get to avail these features in the most seamless and clean manner. Without disrupting your normal business activities you will be able to upgrade your Realty Redefined accounts to use the latest offerings from us.
Multiple Websites: Besides all of the above the biggest advantage of using Realty Redefined on the Cloud, is the ability to be able to add as many websites as you like on top of your Realty Redefined online account. This aspect has huge bearings on how you market your inventory online. You can keep a single database of your property & project inventory, and keep on adding websites on different but relevant domains. All these websites will source their data from your account on the cloud. This provides tremendous flexibility and cost effectiveness.
Cost Effective: With no cloud computing, a business will need to generally have at least some basic computer server, from which all employees access the installation of Realty Redefined. Usage of Cloud Computing allows an organization to keep the Realty Redefined installations off-site. This may bring down the cost per employee, in that access through a Cloud will generally be more cost effective than purchase of an in-house server computer.
Advantages Galore: What our end clients are actually doing when they access Realty Redefined on the cloud is simply "using common software and functionality by means of accessing a business application which exists on a remote server via the Internet". Hence simply put the Internet is the "cloud" of applications and services that are available to be used by valid subscribers. Because of this infrastructure organizations using Realty Redefined will see improved productivity because they will end up preventing.
1. Financial Waste, since there is no need to invest in a lot of hardware in terms of computing resources.
2. Better track Employee Activities.
3. Avoid other headaches of using computers viz. viruses, hard disk's getting corrupted, system crashes & one of the hundreds of reasons because of which you will face "data loss".

Besides the above mentioned points, Realty Redefined on the cloud also means that there will be improvements in. Security, Speed & Availability. There is no denying the present and future of Cloud Computing. And we are confident that when applied to the Real Estate industry, it leads to a Win - Win situation for all our clients. Cloud Computing will not only remain a staple in modern business, but will likely streamline organizational operations in many new ways, as well as expanding upon its current uses.

Moving to a professional approach in real estate consulting

The real estate industry in India is huge with an estimated size in excess of Rs. 540 billion and is growing at a rate of almost 30% annually. But even though it contributes directly or indirectly an estimated 14% to the country’s GDP, it is still predominantly an unorganized sector. In fact it still doesn’t qualify for the status of an industry mainly because of the perception of a lack of credibility and transparency that plagues this sector due to the vast difference in quality of tracking data.

This situation is especially accentuated in the real estate consulting space where absence of entry barriers and lack of adequate training means virtually anyone can take up a real estate advising role without much investment resulting in intense competition. Fortunately, the service levels in real estate consulting are fast improving owing to increasing demands from both clients and investors alike. With players like REBI, Colliers International, Knight Frank, Better Homes, Remax, HDFC Realty, DHFL and many more entering the property retail and the sole selling space, property buyers, sellers and investors are in for customer delight.

Personalized and professional communication, efficient management of inspection schedules, huge inventory of fresh and resale properties and post transaction support provided by these organized companies pose a huge threat to the traditional real estate brokerage businesses. The traditional brokers are already losing out to professional competition on the exclusive marketing and sole selling opportunities. Although some traditional real estate consults that still enjoy investor trust are doing good business and are also getting sole selling projects mainly due to a huge investor base, this may not last forever. Their professional counterparts are catching up at a fast pace by building great relationships through customer loyalty and personalized service.
As such, the need of the hour for traditional real estate brokers is to completely reinvent their self and adopt a professional approach in the light of the changing business scenario.
Here are a few action points that would go a long way in establishing lasting relationships with clients:

Get organized! Deploy a Customer Relationship Management system to manage all your leads and requirements as also the activities related to them. With the help of this you can

Auto match properties for requirements and generate PDF reports that can be printed or emailed to prospective clients
Generate property and requirement registration forms
Generate property inspection reports and activity updates for property sellers
Manage all your activities and transactions
Build up a huge inventory of real estate projects for giving maximum choices to the clients
Market your properties among other consultants

Get yourself a professional website! It will be the face of your company and the first point of contact for potential clients. In fact many NRI clients rely on information derived from your online presence while making an investment decision. Fortunately, Realty Redefined also helps you build a dynamic company portal where properties can be listed with photographs to attract online prospects.

Strive for customer satisfaction! It is very important to treat customers in a very professional manner in order to build a successful partnership. Value their time and needs so that they can rely on you to be capable and efficient. And always be transparent with deals so that you are sure to get repeat business and establish credibility.

Be well informed! Thanks to the Internet, clients today have access to a wide range of information. It is essential then that you are not left behind. Be sure to stay updated about the latest trends and developments in the real estate sector as also regarding correct and reliable information relating to projects.

Remember, adopting a professional approach to real estate consulting is the best way to sustain and thrive in this fast changing market!

This is the second part of the Realtor Connect series from Realty Redefined. Realty Redefined can not only automate all your business workflows but also can help you market your properties effectively through Realtor Connect and build a huge property inventory through Real Estate Projects. To find out more, please call our helpline +91-22-26686866, email us at info@vitruviantech.com or visit us at www.realtyredefined.com

Role of information technology in real estate marketing !

The use of Information Technology is slowly but surely changing the Real Estate business landscape in India. The real estate brokerage business is in the midst of dramatic changes brought about by online technology, increased automation and enhanced accessibility to information. Business survival is becoming more closely tied to real estate consulting firms’ abilities to adapt to technological changes and to use technology to attract customers. The most important question for anyone who is in the real estate business is – Whether you are ready to reinvent yourself in these changing circumstances in order to propel towards the rapid phase of growth that lies ahead?

Changing profile of potential customers: Customers expect much more from a real estate broker/salesperson today than in the past. Potential clients are far well informed since they are able to harness the power of the Internet to access information. They in turn also expect real estate professionals to raise their service offerings and use a professional approach to meet client needs. This becomes almost a necessity in case of high value NRI clients who rely on online information and prefer consultants with a good brand image.

Realtors implementing IT certainly have the edge! - The implementation of Information Technology plays a key role in bringing down operational costs, improving customer relationships and reaching out to online prospects on the internet. Information Technology can add a lot of value to Real Estate businesses by helping them with Customer Relationship management, online advertisement and brand positioning. Such realtors can manage their business efficiently, market properties using digital channels, increase sales, and provide a noticeably higher level of service to both buyers and sellers.

What opportunities exist and how can IT help?
By implementing a robust and efficient real estate software solution like Realty Redefined, real estate consultants can target the following areas in order to streamline and grow their business:

Business Management

Manage fresh and resale properties with requirements efficiently
Match properties for a requirement and shortlist them for clients
Schedule inspections and generate inspection reports to give the client the exact match for his requirement
Efficiently manage and track agreements and transactions
Generate professional quality proposals, property listing reports, registration reports for personalized communication

Integrated Marketing and Networking

Easily conduct Email and SMS campaigns to a targeted group
Instantly network with a large number of realtors on a platform such as Realtor Connect to share properties and requirements

Benefiting from the huge online market of buyers and sellers via personalized portals

Grab a significant share of online traffic (over 200,000 real estate searches per month as on today)
Give a professional touch to your business by establishing a strong online presence.
Integrate website with your software to easily list properties with photographs on the website

This is the first part of the Realtor Connect series from Realty Redefined. Realty Redefined can not only automate all your business workflows but also can help you market your properties effectively through Realtor Connect and build a huge property inventory through Real Estate Projects. To find out more, please call our helpline +91-22-26686866, email us at info@vitruviantech.com or visit us at www.realtyredefined.com