Thoughtfulness In Business Creates Trust

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SACHIN BHANDARI, CEO, VTP REALTY SPEAKS TO SAPNA SRIVASTAVA ABOUT THE CHANGING DYNAMICS OF PUNE’S REAL ESTATE AND THE COMPANY’S ROLE IN THE CITY’S EMERGING SKYLINE. Today, VTP Realty is Pune’s leading real estate firm, a feat made possible due to the goodwill of decades and the reputation of being a turnaround specialist who has taken over large stuck projects and made them viable and successful. The case in point being Codename Township Pegasus and Codename Township Blue Waters in West and East Pune respectively. WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR REALTY SECTOR TO HAVE RECOVERED FASTER THAN EXPECTED? The general public as well as the experts have a tendency to underestimates the real estate sector and therefore they get surprised when this sector does well, because it is beyond what they had anticipated. The Indian real estate is resilient and has withstood many shocks in the past. As a matter of fact, the developers have been changing with times in terms of business practices and product design and pricing. Keeping pace with the digital advancements and customer getting more tech savvy, real estate firms too are increasing their digital footprint. The developers are now much more customer centric. Also, during pandemic there was a sudden awakening among people about the importance of owning a home. Those who were happy renting till now wanted to buy their own home and those who already owned home wanted to upgrade to a bigger home. The government concessions, lowering of home loan interest rates and developer’s incentives and discounts, all worked in favour of boosting the residential real estate demand. Thus, the sales recovery happened faster than expected across cities and specifically in tier-II cities as homebuyers could afford bigger homes within their budgets. Pune was one of the preferred location for homebuyers given its well-developed infrastructure, proximity to Mumbai and varied quality options of affordable property available in all segments from low income to luxury. WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF MUCH TALKED ABOUT TOWNSHIP TREND? The integrated or mixed use townships had started emerging across various cities more than 10 years back. They fulfilled the need of ‘quality of life’ for homebuyers as these developments have all the lifestyle amenities and facilities within walking distance. The modern townships are spread across large tracts of land, have well planned infra and green spaces. In Pune, townships have always been a preferred choice because of the capital value appreciation that is generally higher due to the amenities available and high rental generation. Going forward we will see more such developments in the periphery and suburbs of major cities. With remote working becoming a norm, homebuyers will prefer homes in mixed-use townships for their pollution free environment and lifestyle factor. VTP Realty has made a mark in Pune city by introducing impressive township projects such as Pegasus, one of their megaprojects equipped with all the ultra-modern amenities and Bluewaters Township – a haven for nature lovers. "PUNE, REAL ESTATE MARKET IS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE COUNTRY. I AM BULLISH ABOUT THIS CITY AS THE REALTY MARKET HERE IS BALANCED WITH FAIR AMOUNT OF END USERS AND INVESTORS. IT HAS VARIOUS GROWTH DRIVERS FROM INDUSTRIAL HUB AND THE PROMINENT IT SECTOR TO EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES AND THE SENIOR CITIZEN’S PREFERRED CHOICE OF RETIREMENT DESTINATION.” WHAT ARE THE REAL ESTATE SECTOR EXPECTATIONS FROM THE GOVERNMENT? While government is doing their best to revive the real estate sector. There have been several long standing demand of the sector. Availability of finance is the biggest concern. The rate of interest offered to the real estate developers are very high. Very few listed developers are getting easy & low cost finance. Around 99% of developers do not have access to easy & low cost finance. When developers struggle to get finance there expense to develop a project increase, resulting in high property prices. If government & RBI, together with finance institutions and banks can resolve this issue, execution cost for developer will come down considerably. Secondly, buying a land involves huge capital investment. The developer many a times have to borrow at high rate or get an equity partner. The number of approval and getting them is time consuming which take years before a project can be launched after land acquisition. But in the meantime, the developer is already paying high interest on borrowed funds. This raises the cost of the project. If the approval time can be brought down to 6 months to a year, it will substantially bring down the project costs, make it more affordable for buyers and earn more tax revenue for government. Practically this can be a win- win situation for all. FOR PAST 2 YEARS WE ARE IN A LEADERSHIP POSITION IN PUNE. THIS HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE DUE TO OUR THOUGHTFUL WORK APPROACH TOWARDS OUR CUSTOMERS, EMPLOYEES, PARTNERS AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS WHAT ARE THE USPs OF VTP REALTY? VTP Realty benefits from the 40-years legacy of our group in the construction industry. We source 70% of our construction materials from our group companies through backward integration, enabling us to deliver better quality homes in a shorter time span. While, VTP Materials is a leading cement supplier in West India, Viraj Projects, also under the flagship of VTP Group, is the infrastructure development and construction contracting company and boasts of almost every national developer as their customer. Our strength of being a backward integrated developer helped us in 2020 to keep our projects construction on track. While many developers were struggling due to construction materials supply disruption, we were able to manage the same and are still very much equipped to handle any kind of situation. AS THE GROUP IS ONE OF THE LEADING SUPPLIER OF CEMENT, STEEL & HARD-CORE CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AS WELL AS WORKS WITH OTHER DEVELOPERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY, WE HAVE THE PULSE OF THE TRENDS IN CONSTRUCTION AND REA ESTATE SECTORS, THAT ADDS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE AND GIVE US THE ABILITY TO FORECAST THE SITUATION. WE ARE AWARE OF THE CHALLENGES BEFOREHAND AND CAN TACKLE THEM WISELY. BUSINESS STRATEGY & GROWTH PLANS FOR VTP REALTY VTP Realty group is a 10 years young company that has become the .one of the largest developer of Pune in a very short span of time. The reason for success lied in our meticulous project planning right from the strategic location and planning and design of the project to the kind of amenities provided and the reasonable pricing for the customer. VTP Realty has highly aggressive & cautious plans in terms of growth but with our feet firmly on the ground. We achieved 20 times growth in 5 years and we want to continue to work passionately towards achieving the expected growth for our organization.