Realty ad budget mounts as demand picks up

Realty ad budget mounts as demand picks up
The Financial Express, November 14, 2009, Page 4

Kakoly Chatterjee, New Delhi

With demand slowly picking up in real estate and more project launches taking place, the spend on advertisement has gone up for most companies in the sector like DLF, Parsvnath and Ansals.

The country’s largest real estate firm DLF has already spent around Rs 3 crore during the first half of this year. It has spent Rs 40 crore during the tenure of IPL II. Ansal is planning to spend around Rs 3 crore on advertising revenue during the second half of this year. Parsvanath is planning to spend a similar amount during the second half of this year.

With the upturn in the real estate sector and more project launches taking place adspends are likely to go up for the real estate sector. “Compared to last year, we have increased our adspend by 15% during the first half of this financial year,” Rajeev Talwar, group executive director, DLF, said. During the tenure of Indian Premiere League (IPL), DLF spends around Rs 40 crore in TV advertisements.

Ansal and Parsvnath are in the process of launching around six new housing projects each in the next couple of months. The former has a presence in office space and is also planning to develop offices in Gurgaon.

All these developers have a slew of launches lined up for the next few months at affordable prices. Ansal is setting up Europa apartments in Panipat which will be in the range of Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh, and Santushi Enclave in Lucknow which will be in the range of Rs 12 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. It also plans development in Karnal in the range of Rs 10.5 lakh to Rs 24.5 lakh, group housing in Karnal in the range of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 35 lakh, plotted development in Gurgaon in the range of Rs 40 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore and an un-named project in Meerut.

“Currently, we have started spending on advertisements for our existing projects as well as for our new projects,” Anil Kumar, CEO of Ansal said.

For Parsvnath, majority of its portfolio consists of residential development and a smaller part consists of retail development. While the latter is completely on hold for now, it is planning new launches all over India.

Like most developers who are playing safe, Parsvnath is also launching affordable housing. These include group housing in Rohtak in the range of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, in Lucknow in the range of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh, in Karnal in the range of Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.