"Real estate developers don’t feel the need for lavish festive offers to push sales"

Unlike previous years, real estate developers have not introduced exciting festive offers this season. Ready to move in houses and apartments, limited products in hand, affordable bank interest rates for home loans, and already good response from customers are reasons why real estate owners are not forced to provide attractive schemes.

However, Downtown and The Residency Apartments have something for customers for the festive season. Downtown Apartment at Khumaltar is offering a free modular kitchen with rental and buyback guarantee. Of the 55 apartments to be sold, the company plans to have 20 units booked during this festive season. “The market response for this season is overwhelming. As we developers have 3,000 units of both housing and apartment units in hands, we need not go for promoting our products with any scheme,” said Minman Shrestha, Managing Director of Downtown Housing. However, he said, “As we are offering various schemes each year, this year also we are giving modular kitchens free with every purchase of an apartment.” Citing that they are getting frequent inquiries and site visits, he said, “The relatives of our customers themselves are doing word of mouth promotion and we hope to sell more of our products soon.”

According to him, the price of their apartments starts from Rs 3.2 million up to Rs 8.5 million for one to four bedroom apartments. Moreover, he said that banking institutions offering easy home loans as low as 8.5 per cent has also increased the purchasing capacity of the customers.

This festive season, Bajra Shangrila is also providing ready to move into apartments with furniture and modular kitchens at ‘The Residency’, Sanepa. With the scheme ‘Residency fully furnished offer’, the company is furnishing apartments with Index Furniture from Thailand. The apartments offer bedrooms, living, dining, kitchens, bathrooms and balconies at the price starting from Rs 4.19 million onwards. Reportedly, of their 105 apartments only 32 apartments remain unsold. “During Dashain and Tihar festivals, the purchasing power of customers increases and many people going abroad come home. We are providing this offer with a tie-up with Index furniture. Customers can move in immediately after purchasing the apartment,” said Prakash Bajracharya, Director of Bajra Shangrila.

CE Construction, one of the major players in the real estate sector, is not offering anything this festive season. “Since we are doing pretty well in business, we did not need to provide any schemes to lure customers besides our quality service and timely delivery of products,” said Bijay Rajbhandary, Chairman of CE Construction. Citing that customers need to plan in detail, he said, “Unlike any other purchase, purchasing a house or apartment is totally different. It needs detail planning and schemes won’t have much effect on purchase decision.”

He also informed that they are getting inquiries and bookings for their projects such as Ishan Colony, Grande Villa, Chauni Cluster, Prime Colony, Araniko Colony and others. According to him, they have regular sales throughout the year, but sales go up during January and February. Complaining about the scarcity of raw materials earlier, Rajbhandari said, “We planned to handover our few projects before Dashain, however due to this problem, we could not meet our deadline.” Moreover, he said that construction cost has also increased during the period.

As they have no new project, Civil Group is not offering any festive scheme this season. “We have already got bookings for all our ongoing projects and all we have to do is finish construction,” informed Bhim Kharel, Advisor of Civil Group, adding that there is no point in promoting the project further. However, one can get discounts up to Rs one million while purchasing an apartment in Civil Luxury at Sundhara. He said that they plan to launch their new project at Sitapaila before Dashain.

source: the himalayan times,13 sept 2014