The Middle-Class Dream of Karachi — Real Estate Agony

It is the dream of almost every middle-class person in Karachi to own a house of his own. It’s like a pre-requisite to earn some respect in society and get some piece of mind in the busy and tiresome life of the city called Karachi.

The people who have lived or are still living in rented apartments/houses can only tell you how difficult it has been and how much more difficult it is becoming to afford a house with the salary of a middle-class man with the inflation touching record highs of many decades. It is becoming difficult to earn bread for the family itself and if you don’t own a house it might be near impossible to manage with the current state of salaries.

The Real Estate agencies/developers need to keep this in focus and the Government needs to show some sort of concern and come up with a plan, not just for the time being, but a concrete solution to this biggest problem of the society. The issue with the city is that there is almost no piece of land remaining, and inflow of the human resources either increasing within the city or coming from other cities in search of opportunities, can’t provide a decent house to live in. This creates brighter minds to move towards better opportunities abroad and others to go back to their villages or cities they came from. This phenomenon is a killer for the industries.

If the Labor or the management can’t afford a house in the city and have a piece of mind at home then sooner or later they will break and the industry will break itself. As I look around my circles I don’t find even a single person satisfied in the current situation be it a salaried employee of a multinational company a labor in society or an established businessman. Everyone has their problem but one common issue everybody faces is the house for their family and the facilities that are becoming extinct including the basic requirements of electricity, gas, and water.

If we summarize the situation of the housing in the city we can list down a few major issues faced by the people (and some advice on its solutions) as under:

· Basic Necessities

This is the most important part many city areas are now facing shortage/scarcity of necessities such as water, electricity, and gas. Outages have become routine and increasing each passing day. The government needs to implement a system that does not, at least, affect the people who are paying the bills. Currently, the whole area or the supply line suffers even if a few outstanding customers are there.

· Location

People need a house that is relevant to the city where good schooling for the children is available as well as entertainment is not scarce. In addition, the house needs to be closer to the workplace as well. This aspect is at the user end so some sort of information should be provided in a manner that people don’t have to search the whole city or all the areas around to get the answer.

· Affordability

The house either on rent or to purchase must not be heavy on the pocket. The rent or sale prices should be checked and should be brought into some sort of mechanism of legal control. Sometimes the prices are so high that you wonder what is so special we are buying and don’t find an accurate answer.

· Availability

Availability is another issue if you find an area with all aspects mentioned above covered there might not be any house available.

There needs to be an information system archived online with a ranking system of the areas as per people’s choice in every category. Ashiyaan has started work in this regard we have multiple tools already prepared and some are under development to provide the users with basic and advanced information when choosing a house to live in. We are also working on providing updated status of necessities such as hours of load shedding of electricity, gas, and water. The state of roads and sewerage would also be updated for each area of the city. The data would be supported by actual user reviews and feedback so that authentic information can be provided to the end user.

Now some words of advice for the Real Estate Developers and Agencies: As per our initial research and information we received from real estate agents as well as customers looking to rent and purchase we have come up with the following detailed intervention points to better sell and develop a strategy to absorb the customer-specific information and find a perfect match for the requirement.

Most of the agents have many listings available at a time but something wrong that they do is they try to sell what they have instead of getting to know what is required by the customers. So what to do and how to do it:

· Read the mind of the Customer

To fulfill the demand of the customer you need to read the mind of the customer that comes your way and ask them all the questions in your book don’t be afraid to ask questions that show the customers that you are already working with them to provide the best solution to them and find them a perfect home. Prepare a tool a form that has all the questions whose answers you will need to find a home. From basics like the number of rooms, size of the apartment, location area, etc. to the more complex questions like preferences in terms of the locality and people living around. In addition, take note of the client’s time as well ask them in detail when can they visit and what time suits them, and don’t be afraid to tell them if the timings they suggest are inappropriate in any way.

· Browse your Inventory

o Prepare your inventory in such a manner that when your customer form is filled you should be able to browse through the inventory and see if any of the available properties is worth showing to the customers. Try and find at least three to four properties if not more for a customer.

· Sell your Inventory

The priority of the agent should be to sell your property list down all the points that matched and brief the client before moving to the actual site about why you chose to show them the property. This briefing might sound like an unnecessary thing but trust me it’s the most important thing it gives a sense to the client that the information that he gave to you was not just for filling in some unnecessary form but you did some homework based on their requirements.

· Sell the trust

If any / all properties are missing any feature required by the customers please feel confident in telling them and the reason you were unable to find that specific feature along with other requirements this will make the client trust you more rather than you think that it will move them away nothing sells better than the truth. Just make sure it’s not something the client asked specifically not to be overlooked or unavailable.

Building a name in the Estate Agent business is not done overnight it takes some time to be recognized in the system. We at Ashiyaan recommend using the latest tools of society to approach the customers as well as to market the inventory. For your inventory to be seen by the customer engage a professional in social marketing and learn a few trades yourself too. The inventory would sell if all the relevant information, as well as visual data (images/videos), were available to the customer online.
Most of the online listings lack proper information and visual data to attract customers that’s why the online mechanism has not yet caught the eyes of the customers. But this could all change if you correctly use the right tools.

Ashiyaan provides free listing services for your business with some specialized paid features for bigger projects such as virtual tours and other use of technology such as professional photography/map making and review writing for the project/area and location. Feel free to contact us for any such work.

We also provide pieces of training to estate agents and agencies to run/develop their businesses in a better fashion. We provide training based on the budget from in-house training at your premises to corporate training from the experts of the industry to train and develop the manpower.