The real estate market in the county had been terribly hit by the pandemic. Odisha was no different. However, with vaccination gathering pace, companies believe normalcy will be back before long. In a conversation with Orissa POST, Jagadish Prasad Naik, Chairman- DN Group, believes the sector will be back to normalcy in a year’s time.
How do you see the real estate scenario in Odisha? What are the growth prospects?
The real estate market in Odisha is different from what they are in other states. The real estate market was stable as compared to other tier 1 & tier 2 cities during recession in 2008 -09 when lots of cities faced adverse time. The prime reason for this is the supply-demand ratio. The supply has never spilt over demand in Odisha. It has rather remained below demand. It will take some years to reach that level. The local real estate companies are doing well and a few have established themselves with a better brand value catering to both investors and end-users.
In the 30 years of the real estate industry in Odisha, Bhubaneswar has been the real estate hub of the state, but now there is an RE presence in other cities too which should have happened a decade back. As Bhubaneswar holds the major infrastructural backing as compared to other cities of Odisha, it is still in the top priority of any home seeker in Odisha. Operation of airport, commercial developments like mall multiplexes, star hotels in the prime industrial and commercial cities of the state can encourage the real estate sector in those cities, because these aspects have been encouraging the Bhubaneswar real estate market for the home seekers of the state as of now. The growth prospect is always there in real estate as its demand is not going to end at any given point of time. The sector also comes in top five employment generators of the country growing year by year and is also indirectly linked to about 300 allied industries.
Pandemic has negatively impacted Indian GDP. How has the real estate sector been impacted?
Pandemic has impacted all the sectors of the country with very few exceptions and real estate is also a worst hit sector. The real estate sector had a plunge in the two quarters and thereafter it regained slowly. People didn’t think of a new house during those period as many company laid off their employees and self-employed were in financial crunch. The first and foremost priority was to save money for the future. Thereafter, the sector started improving slowly with the survivors of the pandemic which is about 50% of the pre-pandemic period. To start with the 50 per cent figure is not a bad one, but at the same time it is not a positive indicator too. Once the vaccines roll out to the mass and the normalcy resumes, the sector will bounce back which may take a year’s time or so.
Your company is well-known to customers. What are the future projects and the specialties of your customer service?
Yes, our company is of course a popular brand among the home seekers for which we have been working for the last 17 years and improving ourselves every day to retain our brand value, which is a tough task. We have various projects coming up in future as we have also verticals in hospitality and education, but in real estate there are 5 mega residential projects coming up in southern part of Bhubaneswar.
After booking of a flat in our customer care division, we work on a lot of factors by which the customer finds every update of our project at his fingertips so that he lives in a peace of mind relating to his flat he has booked. Most importantly, we have a very simplified cancellation and refund policy which is almost a fear factor in all purchasers’ mind with other companies. Through our simplified cancellation policy also a customer lives in a peace of mind.