By Amit Ruparel, Managing Director at Ruparel Realty
India is all set for the techno-haul coming up in real estate owing to the official permission of commercial use of drones from December 1, 2018. This will surely bring revolution in real estate as aerial photography and videography becomes a useful medium to represent a property effectively for providing a larger than life perspective. Additionally, given the cut-throat competitiveness nature of real estate business, effectual pictures to show a bird’s eye view of the property helps showcase a project’s surroundings better. One can examine the social infrastructure of the property such as markets, parks, etc. which again provides a wholesome experience to the buyer. In this digital era, almost every buyer is searching for properties online and to stand out from the rest of properties, one has to keep up with innovation.
The power of video marketing
In this digital era, almost every home buyer scrutinizes real estate projects online, hence upgrading and utilizing right technology tool is the only way forward in order to sustain in the market. For under-construction properties, 360-degree views from the building at various heights can give buyers a sense of the actual views from their apartments. Beyond the marketing purview, drones can helps in quality-control and inspection at construction sites. When it comes to planning stage, technology has helped immensely to conceptualise what development is going to be. This is because, visual representation is more informative than set of plans. Lastly, precise and well-timed assessments of property conditions by utilizing drone technology helps in reducing investment risk. That is, property managers, owners and insurers make key decisions about their properties using the technology.
Property mapping via drones
According to a recent survey by PwC, the use of drones for the purpose of property mapping is becoming prominent, since it is easier to draw 3 dimensional maps of buildings providing details such a built up area and number of floors. Also, the technology is cheaper now compared to some years ago, and cost same to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The data collected using drones can also be used to compare original plans with the ongoing construction work to showcase potential buyers how a site is making progress. Moreover, this technology can help scrutinize different stages of an under-construction project and help managing resources. Also, all the third party websites are equipped to support high-end technology which showcases such videos.
The NRI buy-in
The technology is also well – received by NRI community whose interest in real estate has already increased tremendously in past two years post implication of RERA and GST. More recently the real estate investment sentiments have turned even more positive for NRI community owing to depreciating value of rupee against dollar. Hence, streamlining the buying and selling process by providing more visual information at a reasonable cost has fueled purchasing decision of this segment. Also with this set of demography, any opportunity to further educate the buyer about the property they’re purchasing is a win-win situation.
The Millennial Connect
A survey by CBRE (real estate and investment firm) says that 82% of Indian millennial stay with their parents and more than 23% of these are likely to move out of their family homes within the next two to five years. These stats point out to an encouraging fact – that the millennial are serious about their future and consider owning a home as an important investment. Also, since the segments is extremely informed and have a ready checklist, drone videos comes handy in order to speculate the project properly. Already, 32% of people in the market to buy a new home are actually first-time homebuyers. Being able to look at some futuristic aerial photos and videos could help sellers close deals with this younger demographic.
In Conclusion
The best from the real estate fraternity already know that presentation is the key in attracting and engaging with serious buyers. Real estate investors base their investment on many factors. Hence, using the drones can help in selling land and existing properties, especially when investors are located in another state or country.
With the aerial capabilities of a drone, surveying is quicker than the traditional methods. Also with drones, one can capture what most people would never see, and that will give them much more to go on when they are making the decision to buy their next home.