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Yuppies at forefront of housing boom

Parul Gupta

At the forefront of the housing boom in the country are young professionals from the services sector belonging to the middle income bracket. Individuals belonging to the services sector account for 47 per cent of the total registered users on indiaproperties.com. About 25 per cent of the total users on the site belong to the 26-30 age group and about 40 per cent users belong to the Rs 100,00-300,000 income group, according to statistics released by Indiaproperties, a real estate services company.

"While 19 per cent professionals and 15 per cent self-employed use our site, 47 per cent of the registered users belong to the services sector which is the sector fuelling the housing demand in our economy," indiaproperties managing director Naresh Malkani said.

Over 60 per cent of the users on the site have incomes ranging between Rs 100,000-600,000 who, according to Malkani, are actually buying more houses and are exploring property options and various brokers on our site. The maximum users (25.4 per cent) on the site belong to the 26-30 age bracket and another 18 per cent to the 31-35 age group. Another 18.5 per cent users, belonging to the 21-25 age group, are, however, exploring the site to search for lease options, Malkani said.

Shattering all doubts about the viability of the real estate portals, he said the conversion rate (the number of online queries actually materialising into real transactions) was as high as 23 per cent on Indiaproperties and is likely to increase further.

Statistics disclosed that 88 per cent of the people who logged on to the indiaproperties.com portal to search for properties were males.

"It might be that in all the 88 per cent cases women make the final decision but 88 per cent men make the first move of looking for homes," he added.

Malkani was in New Delhi to announce the launch of the Indiaproperties Institute of Real Estate with an aim to provide quality and skilled professionals to the real estate market in India. The institute will be initially launched in Bangalore, Delhi, Bombay, Pune and Madras. To start with, Indiaproperties has launched a certificate programme basically targeted at brokers in the industry. The company, at a later stage, wants to develop a graduate degree course for the real estate industry. "We aim to take the real estate industry to new heights of professionalism with the help of trained work-force and, thus, to bring credibility and respect to the industry," Malkani said.

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