Bricks & Bytes: Walking the talk

By: E Jayashree Kurup, Magicbricks.com Bureau

It's a new year fraught with possibilities and I thought this is a good time to communicate personally with our readers. After all, even the country's sentiments turned when it's Prime Minister Narendra Modi started engaging in discussions such as 'Mann Ki Baat' with citizens.

For starters, as India celebrates the 65th anniversary of becoming a Republic by adopting the Indian Constitution, join us in saluting the nation and its citizens who have struggled through good times and bad to preserve the dignity of our country. As we embark on an epic struggle to cover the housing shortfall that has ballooned to 18.6 million housing units, Magicbricks Research is working with housing ministries of governments and the private sector to establish credible data on market trends that will allow monthly and quarterly assessments of housing stock and help evolve solutions on how to fix the problem.

Read all about the major housing initiatives in our exclusive series on India@65 which you have been reading regularly since 13th January 2015, the auspicious Makar Sankranti festival that celebrates the turn of seasons and brings hope of prosperity across the country.

This was also the time when the Indian housing consumer for the first time gave a thumbs down to property markets. The Magicbricks-IIM-B Housing Sentiment Index (HSI.magicbricks.com) dropped below 100 for the first time in four quarters indicating that consumers across the country expect the prices of houses to fall and are willing to defer their purchase till that happens. In parallel, the PropIndex (Oct-Dec 2014) indicated robust consumer demand, concentrated at the base of the pyramid, in the Upto Rs 20 lakh or Rs 20-60 lakh categories, depending on the city. However in most cities, this was undersupplied and the supply was most for high end or luxury properties where demand lagged supply.

Magicbricks Content & Research team has been combing the real estate markets as well as trends on our robust database to bring you news that you can use. In addition, we strongly believe that our inspiration is our fantastic reader database which has been following us in good times and bad and has increasingly become interactive. So, we ended the Year 2014 with a Magicbricks Santa offering a bag full of goodies to those of you who not only read, but comment on our stories on the Magicbricks site, participate in the conversations on our discussion forum Open House and also comment on localities in the localities.magicbricks.com/. We were amazed at the robust response that you gave this initiative and I take this opportunity to congratulate our winners.

Keep with us and enjoy the journey, because Magicbricks Content & Research aims primarily to service consumers who have no formal advisors. You already have advice as a section that addresses all your needs and provides you with tools to make informed property buying decisions. Watch this space and we assure you this will become richer, more useful and easier to use as we draw upon your requirements and customise our product accordingly. Do keep writing to me at jayashree.kurup@magicbricks.com and I would be happy to address your queries.