Do I See A Success Tale Embracing Realestate?

Before you begin, consider a dozen things! 

Once every two or three days, we get a mail that asks just one plain old question. "How to start a real estate business?" For the next few minutes, let this computer screen in front of you, become a mirror.

Ask yourself a dozen random questions before you make that foray into real estate;

1. If you want to become a real estate builder and a Google search got you here, do us a favor. Please go back to selling the under arm deodorant or whatever it is that you do. Also, next time try searching for how to extract uranium from your backyard. It will be a more fruitful use of your time.

2. If you want to start a brokerage setup/ consultancy/ transaction advisory or some such cool sounding thing, and a Google search got you here, go back to point no. 1.

3. Did you get past the first two? We think you are serious about being a real estate dude. If you are an experienced real estate professional in service, planning to start your own real estate venture, ensure that you have at least two years' survival reserves for you and your family. You do? Awesome! Now multiply that by 5. That is how much you will really need to start. We are not discouraging you buddy. We are merely averting a metro station suicide a year from now.

4. If you are a businessman, we see two distinct reasons for you to start a real estate venture. First - You rogered your existing business so bad that you need to start something afresh. Very nice. Have you considered organic farming? Or starting a chit fund company? Those are relatively easier things to do than anything real estate. Second - Your current business is doing well but you love self abuse want to diversify. You know what? We hear Toyota is planning to manufacture G-Strings and Coca Cola is starting a fertilizer manufacturing plant. So you have hope after all.

5. If you love words like DLF and UNITECH, let us remind you that were you to add the debts of just those two companies, you would get a figure higher than the GDP of a few nations. Would you like to go bed every night, with that kind of pressure on your head? Or would you rather do what you are doing, as long as it keeps you happy. Run that thought over in your head the night before your annual tax payment date and you might get some divine advice similar to what you are reading now.

6. If you are impressed by that land broker friend of yours, just walk out of your office the next time he comes in and start looking for his BMW. What? He rides a motorcycle? Moral of the story: No matter what you are driving now, as soon as you follow in his footsteps, you WILL be riding a motorcycle soon.

7. You see some big money in selling under construction projects. Selling a Rupees 1 crore apartment entitles you to a brokerage of Rupees 2 lacs approximately. The average construction period in India is 4 years from the day of start of bookings. 12.5% of your receivables will become irrecoverable due to various reasons. In reality, you will make Rupees 1.75 lacs. Divide that by 48 months and you have Rupees 3,645 per month as your gross revenue. To run your family and real estate business, you need a bare minimum of Rupees 2 lacs per month. Now imagine the colossal task to achieve your monthly sales requirements. It would be easier to sell faulty components to our army and air force we think. And way more prestigious.

8. If you like imagining those cool telemarketing and sales girls hovering around your new real estate office, let us tell you that 6 out of 10 calls being made from your office are personal and 3 out of every 5 sales meetings are resulting in direct sales! For the coffee shop, multiplex or the Chinese restaurant. Not for your real estate firm.

9.  You believe in numerology and 9 is your lucky number. We feel sorry for you.

10. You love the power and the political contacts that come associated with real estate. It turns you on more than selling steel or other building material. Yes there is power in real estate. Power that the local goons, municipal officers, pollution control board staff and the low life sand supplier will exercise over you everyday. And there are enough examples of political connections gone haywire. Just pick up the morning papers when you run out of inspiration.

11. You love the big numbers, the excel sheets and the presentations that are part of fund raising, leasing, sales, and daily operations of a real estate company. You can be sure that entrepreneurs, exactly like yourself helped conceive Lehman and his numerous brothers from different mothers. And that the real world situation went out of control while all those brothers were too busy churning out cool computer graphics!

12. "Do I See A Success Tale Embracing Realestate?", you ask yourself often and get a "Yes" for an answer each time. Brother, if you notice the starting letters of that question, you will see that you are spelling D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R! You are seeing exactly what it isn't. You are planning to follow thousands of people of India, who are into real estate, for reasons known only to them and the One above. We pity them and their uncertain futures.

But then, there are a handful of you still reading this and laughing if off by now. Such flimsy stuff cannot sway your steely determination. You are fine with words like lonely, miserable, broke, tense, unhappy, cheated and many more. You are willing to burn yourself out with hard work. You are willing to sacrifice money for honesty and peace of mind. You are planned. You are unplanned. You are tidy and messy. All at once. Sometimes, you even border on insanity.

Ummm, welcome to real estate mate. Let us raise one for you.

Cheers!

Discuss this topic or simply start your own at the IREFD Forum