Staying on top at a time when technology is evolving at a breakneck pace and new digital trends are exploding every week, is a tough nut to crack, something which few organizations can pull off with brazen alacrity. Thanks to the pandemic preponing a tech wave, business owners, change-makers or entrepreneurs went on a path-breaking mission to respond, adapt and evolve in a way that will have a remarkable influence on society for many years to come.
For Square Yards, India’s largest proptech brokerage and mortgage marketplace, clocking annual gross transactions worth USD 1 Bn+ and an annual revenue run rate of around USD 50 Mn, this pandemic-led digital shift was a cakewalk, considering its change-ready, disruption-fuelled DNA. The proptech player went on to register its best financial year real estate transaction figures in its history in FY21, with all profitable quarters.
Boasting of a next-generation digital platform, Square Yards automates the complete value chain of a real estate transaction – starting from presales with online virtual tours and 3D walkthrough capabilities, a real-time inventory blocking engine integrated with multiple payment gateways and a robust post-sales module for submission of online applications with digital signatures. Furthermore, the platform is integrated with leading banks to enable instant and paperless sanction of home loans, completing the entire home buying cycle for home seekers, without them having to make any physical displacement.
Digital shift in the nick of time
Square Yards, in just a span of 3 days readied its fully-oiled digital infrastructure when the lockdown kicked off last year, for smooth work-from-home operations. Plugging into this digital network from their home workstations, the robust team of Square Yards went on a property selling spree through assistive video interactions with customers, taking them on virtual property tours, managing online bookings and furthering the sales process through digital transactions.
It was a new awakening for the entire Square Yards force as we sold properties and delighted customers across the globe without stepping out of our homes during this pandemic.
How our tech high-fived this new trend
Square Yards deployed tech transformation solutions for every shareholder in the real estate industry.
For Real Estate Developers:
Square Yards’ tech for developers, through a series of pre-built real estate workflows, effective dashboards and powerful sales facilitating mobile apps, now brings complete visibility and control of sales operations, to real estate builders.
For Real Estate Brokerages:
Square Yards has paid special attention to roll out tech modules that are handcrafted to suit a broker’s varied needs. Brokers can automate their marketing campaigns, analyze ROI for each Channel and optimize spends for Lead Generation.
With the help of a powerful mobile app, brokers are ever ready to share real estate product features, specifications and deal-critical information and documents with their prospects on the go and achieve sales targets irrespective of economic weather.
The tech platform for brokerages accurately handles complex, paperwork heavy and time-consuming mortgage processes e-KYC, mortgage applications and credit reports, automatically.
In the rapidly evolving world of paperless currencies and digital invoices, Square Yards tech ensures that no transaction goes unrecorded and payout information to in-house agents and partners is dispute-free and error-proof.
For homebuyers
Square Yards uses ML and AI-enabled tools to recommend available properties based on preferences, personality traits, special demographic analytics, deep regional understanding, comparative analyses, and real-time property values.
Location choices made, home seekers are then treated to realistic 3D walkthroughs, bird’s eye views of projects and their neighborhoods as well as simulated unit renditions in high definition, enabling real estate agents to conduct property showings remotely via a tablet or even a smartphone.
Also in place is a digital sales process, laced with AI, where real-time inventory blocking engines integrated with multiple payment gateways and state-of-the-art transaction enabler tools like digital signatures complete the homebuying process.
Numbers that catapult us to the top
By virtue of its white-hot, next-gen digital infrastructure, Square Yards successfully sold ~15,000 homes in FY21, registering revenue of INR350 Cr. Our GTV jumped 33%, while the EBITDA margin was 14% for the financial year. Our overall market share rose from 3% to 15-18%.
Selling homes through PropVR
One of the digital products that have helped Square Yards in transforming its internal sales operations, capture a larger market share and achieve higher revenue growth is our 3D visualization platform PropVR.
PropVr’s digital transaction module helps real estate developers to complete end-to-end digital transactions on their website. The platform enables listing of projects online and contains brochures, plan layouts, 3D layouts & VR walkthroughs.
PropVr also includes digital mortgage applications integrated with credit bureaus, identity and income verification services that ensure homebuyers get a single window to complete their online property transaction and make a well-informed purchasing decision.
With the shift to digital reaping huge benefits for the real estate sector, it’s no secret that integrated real estate platforms like Square Yards will lead this trend, evoking a new consciousness in every stakeholder in the real estate chain. Selling real estate sitting at home will no longer raise eyebrows and every industry stakeholder will utilize, grow and at the same time interact with customers to transact real estate.
