- Timely completion and financial discipline
make a builder successful’ - says Credai National Chairman and Gaur Group CMD, Manoj Gaur
King Johnson Koyyada, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt : A new era has begun as India is set to embark on new achievements and build a new India. As India celebrates its 100 years of formation, it is expected that the real estate market is set to reach a 5.8 trillion-dollar industry.
The sky is the limit today. India is set to hit 50–60 percent urbanisation. Post-COVID, a realisation has happened among individuals to buy their own house. Now is the time to invest, as the speakers at the largest apex convention, Credai Natcon Egypt, say. Speaking at Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh Lamborghini Convention Centre, Credai National Chairman, and Gaur Group CMD, Manoj Gaur, who started his journey in 1995 in real estate, said, “We started off with a very small project with six flats. My customers are my fractional owners. Timely completion, reputation, and customer confidence, among others, are our profits. In the last 27–28 years, we have completed all our projects on time, regardless of the situation. Be it COVID or global recession.”
According to him, discipline in construction, adopting new technology, adhering to customers’ needs, and always being flexible is what made them successful. “Sales is number 1. You also need to maintain financial discipline to be successful. Also in my journey, what I have learned is to never fall in love with land. For us, land is always a raw material. You may say that even with so many problems, we are here only because we have completed all our projects on time, adhering to all the above aspects,” said Manoj.
As Gaur Group CMD, Manoj has taken to different strategies in building many large integrated townships. It takes a life to execute these townships in India. Manoj, who is closely associated with the “housing for all” concept, said, “Delivering a large-scale project is definitely difficult. It is even more difficult if you are doing affordable housing. At that time, we made a conscious decision to adopt international technology, which is aluminum formwork. We invested more than 150 crore in shuttering itself. That ensures quality, and it rectifies the engineer’s mistake as well. Moreover, it saves a lot of time. The capital invested initially can be recovered in 2–3 years. That gives us a lot of confidence.
In 2017–18, the sales of flats were almost flat in India. People were not ready to buy. At that time, we changed our strategy and identified all the stakeholders: customers, sales consultants, and bankers. We tried to find out what customers needed. Then we implemented a strategy where we told the customers to choose under-construction projects, and until the project is completed, they can shift to our pre-built projects that were left unsold. We hit around Rs 500 crore in just one day. We later changed the payment system. Then in 2018, there were Rs 5000 crore properties and Rs 10,000 crore properties in a single calendar year. Now, this again goes back to our financial discipline and timely delivery, as I mentioned earlier, which made us what we are today.”
He suggested builders constantly innovate themselves and identify customers’ needs. According to Manoj, partnership is very risky in real estate business. He also suggested avoiding partnerships and said that it is not advisable to buy a debt by taking debt and then building projects.
