Ahmedabad’s e-realtors evicting staff

The global slump has finally caught up with realty dotcom companies, a development that was expected ever since the real estate sector across the country went into a downturn because of the recession. Several realty dotcom firms such as makaan.com, indiaproperty.com and magicbricks.com, have closed many of their offices and reduced their staff strength to a bare minimum.

Explaining why this was inevitable, sources in the realty market said the dotcom firms were not receiving enough advertisements from builders, who are their main customers. Builders have cut down on advertisements as part of their  cost-cutting exercise, the sources added.

“These days liquidity is a problem for many realty firms.” said Aditya Verma, business head and vice-president, makaan.com. “As a result, people are focusing on returns on investment. Resources are being redeployed in cities where returns are higher, and our actions are in line with the trend.” He added that some markets continued to be important from the business point of view but, because of the recession, a physical presence in all important cities did not make good business sense anymore.

“Ahmedabad continues to be an important market for us but it is currently being serviced by our regional office in Mumbai,” Verma said.To make maximum use of their resources online real estate portals are  reducing staff strength at their offices or running several centres from their head office or regional offices.