Property consultants are people that specialize in assisting investors and sellers in making informed property buying decisions. In fulfilling their job description, property consultants scout and locate investors with property consulting needs. They contact these clients via phone and email to provide consulting services. They usually plan and deliver business plans to clients in order to persuade them of the value of their services and land a consultancy contract. Property consultants keep an eye on the market for both old and new properties. They are in charge of placing properties on the market, which they do by promoting and selling the property through different media and advertising platforms. Real estate services are services which provide the purchase, sale, lease, rental, or appraisal of real property.
The ANAROCK Group is India’s leading specialized real estate services company with diversified interests across the real estate value chain. The Group Chairman of ANAROCK, Anuj Puri, is a highly respected industry veteran and India’s most prominent thought leader in the real estate domain. He has over 30 years’ expertise in leveraging Indian and global real estate opportunities. He is a highly respected industry veteran and India’s most prominent real estate thought leader. He was Chairman and Country Head of a leading international property consultancy prior to launching ANAROCK in 2017.
ANAROCK was launched after the entire residential operations of a leading international property consultancy was acquired and rebranded. The business model is largely based on exclusive project mandates, wherein the Firm gets the exclusive mandate to sell a particular housing project. Initially focused solely on residential, ANAROCK soon expanded to include ANAROCK Retail, ANAROCK Capital, Land Services, Strategic Consulting, and commercial strata sales, among others. Today, it is the leading independent multi-services real estate consultancy in the country. ANAROCK Group’s key strategic business units are Residential Broking & Advisory, Retail, Investment Banking, Hospitality, Land Services, Warehousing, Industrial & Logistics, Investment Management and Strategic Advisory & Valuations.
In an interview with Insights Success, Anuj Puri, Chairman of ANAROCK shares with us his views and thoughts about the real estate domain. Mentioned below are the highlights of the interview:
What kind of challenges has the company and its team faced while being in the real estate business?
ANAROCK was launched on a strong foundation of pre-existing clientele and is staffed by the industry’s most accomplished veterans. There were the usual teething problems which any new firm must face before attaining an even keep and hitting its growth curve. The competition was fierce but it took less than a year for ANAROCK to emerge as the leading real estate consultancy, and to become profitable. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic initially slowed down the real estate business, but it soon emerged that commercial and retail real estate were the only real laggards. Residential began picking up in a very short time after the first period of slowdown. In FY 202-21, ANAROCK turned a very healthy profit which exceeded the previous year by a sizeable margin.
Real estate industry in India has been seeing a huge competition in past decade. What unique services or features your company offers to stand out in this competition?
ANAROCK was one of the first consultancies to employ its own proprietary technology to support its business. Having this first-mover advantage was a game changer. The Firm has consistently surpassed the competition in terms of technology adoption and continued acquiring tech-based businesses even during the pandemic.
What does the future look like for your company in terms of growth and expansion?
ANAROCK acquired several tech-driven real estate businesses in the last 12 months, apart from partnering with two international players for services expansion. If this was our pace of expansion during a pandemic year, our plans for the future may well be imagined.
The recent COVID-19 pandemic hit hard every industry including Real Estate. The issue of migrant workers has been the major concern for the governments. What has been your company’s approach to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic challenges?
The development and construction sectors were badly hit by the migrant worker crisis during the first lockdown. Since ANAROCK is not active in construction except at an advisory level, the firm was not as impacted as developers were. In fact, the reduced supply pipeline helped ANAROCK to sell even more properties as demand quickly began catching up with the existing supply. This was largely enabled by our technology-driven marketing strategies.
Pandemic put forth the importance of home ownership. The government has also taken the measures to support the real estate industry. How do you plan to take on these opportunities to make the mark in Real estate space?
The government has indeed been supportive to the housing sector. The appetite for homeownership scaled up significantly on the back of several initiatives and policy-based booster shots that the government rolled out. Being on the forefront of technology-backed real estate marketing, ANAROCK was able to market a staggering number of properties during the period of these benefits – and will continue to do so even beyond them. The pandemic has indeed pushed homeownership to the top of most Indians’ priority list and the field of opportunity is vast and fertile.Â
According to you, what post-pandemic trends will emerge in Real Estate in 2021?
Technology will emerge as the strongest-ever enabler for the real estate business. Those who have failed to adopt it in time will find themselves at a serious disadvantage. Even the government has backed the stronger evolution of tech-driven real estate marketing by beginning to enable property registrations at select developers’ offices. Another factor we will see emerge stronger is the desire for bigger homes which can comfortably accommodate critical new trends like work from home and study from home. We will see well-connected suburbs overtake central locations in terms of demand, as choosing these locations allows buyers to opt for larger homes.
