In a bid to offer support to its client base during these challenging times, leading real estate portal Housing.com has launched COVID 19 relief package, under which the company will offer discounts and extended validity on its products. Named “Housing Cares”, the program will cover all existing clients of the Elara Technologies-owned company, including brokers, real estate developers and individual home owners.
This move will enable every partner – brokers, developers and individual home sellers to make up for lost time during the lockdown through heavy discounts on all ad packages, extended validity of up to one month on packages, flexibility to choose launch date of services and attractive discounts and benefits on visualisation products. Housing.com’s, Housing Cares offerings are meant to help ease the liquidity crisis facing brokers and developers, help in customers’ business continuity and enable the fraternity to adopt technology at an accelerated pace.
The move by the real estate portal is in line with its role as a leading player in India’s proptech (property technology) ecosystem. India’s real estate industry has been among the hardest-hit sectors because of the ongoing 40-day lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Real estate contributes an estimated 8% to India’s GDP, and hence it is critical that important players in the sector do their best to maintain stability so that the sector can continue to be a key contributor to the economic growth of our country once normalcy is restored.
As relief measures and exemptions are being announced by the government, there are expectations that the sector might come back to normal in the coming months. Once that happens, more and more Indians are likely to go online not only to do research on property but also to carry out the entire home purchase transaction using online tools. This would largely be a result of accelerated technology adoption, not only in real estate but across sectors, forced by the lockdown.
“Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has impacted businesses across the world. Our efforts are directed at assisting our existing and new partners to adapt to this new climate which calls for an immediate and amplified use of digital and technology platforms. Housing Cares is tailored to help our partners leverage our significant domestic and international reach through crores of monthly online visits to our portal without incurring a heavy financial burden during these tough times. We expect the sector to regain lost ground in the coming months and it is important that real estate businesses are ready for the comeback,” says Mani Rangarajan, Group COO, Housing.com, Makaan.com & PropTiger.com.
The company is also pushing the envelope on online sales through its Project Talks initiative – webinars aimed at connecting developers, intermediaries and buyers from the comfort of their homes. Through these measures, Housing.com is preparing the real estate ecosystem for the new-normal.
