13 November,2022 10:12 AM IST | Mumbai | Yusra Husain
Anchor Tanya Narang, formerly employed by real estate company Gupta and Sen, got one million views for the first video she shot for the company in South Mumbai. Not a professional realtor, Narang used common parlance to attract views
A massive swimming pool twinning with a children's pool by its side and a Jacuzzi on a Worli high-rise roof-top, boasting of breathtaking views of the sun and the city, catches your eye as you mindlessly scroll through Instagram on your way to work in a crowded local train. Like a harmless voyeur peeping into other's lives, you gravitate towards watching the clip a little while longer. A tall man is showing off the property virtually - his communication, and how he points out the good, better and best, keeps you hooked. Inevitably, you are sucked in.
Like the popular Netflix show, Selling Sunset, that takes you on a ride through luxury properties in Los Angeles, realtors in Mumbai are acing their social media game. By making videos that have them showcasing the luxury properties they want to sell, they have become celebrities in their own right. Many social media users know these realtors and brokers by their name, binge watching their videos, sharing it with friends and family, and like us, aspire for the celebrity Mumbai life. Luxury properties in the city range between R75,000-per-sq-ft going up to R2 lakh-per-sq-ft in some localities.
With more than 1.82 lakh followers on Instagram and close to 1.25 lakh subscribers on YouTube, Rafique Merchant has become an influencer of sorts, with words like "jordaar, jabardast and aflatoon" becoming his trademark. In fact, Merchant has landed a small part in the upcoming action crime drama on Netflix, Rana Naidu, where he plays a realtor showing a house to actor Abhishek Banerjee's character. "For the show, I was asked to use my three famous words, because that is how I connect best with people. In real life, for my videos, I also use colloquial words like rapchik and jhakkas, when talking about a property," Merchant tells mid-day.
A regular day in Merchant's life features a property-shoot and personally attending to a luxury buyer. Other clients are attended to by his team. "The shoot takes about three to four hours. I check out the property, acclimate myself to the geography, architecture, whereabouts of the space and then start shooting straightaway with my voice-over." Merchant started working as a realtor 10 years ago, when the gym that he worked at, shut down. "I started as a broker for paying-guest rentals, because this was zero-investment work. My communication skills worked in my favour and I started helping new actors who would come to Andheri looking for shared spaces to live, through ads on OLX and Quicker. I ultimately took to YouTube in 2018, then moved to TikTok, and started going viral there as well. When Reels came up, I jumped on, and my style made me trend," he says.
These days, Merchant gets paid by builders and developers to make exclusive videos of their properties in his unique style, over and above his commission when the sale is made. "This is part of influencer collaborations. Developers pay me between R1 lakh and R5 lakh to showcase their properties. They come to me for âme' and that has made all the difference," Merchant says, adding, "Buyers ask me for selfies when they meet."
There are others like Merchant, who are making a name for themselves and their faces. A second generation realtor, Ravi Kewalramani also handholds the virtual visitor through the length and breadth of luxury properties. Heading RK Mumbai Realtors since 2011, after the demise of his father, real estate investor Chandru Kewalramani who established RK Enterprise in 1988, Kewalramani's professional Instagram handle has 3.7 lakh followers. The company's YouTube channel has 1.33 lakh subscribers and a buyer base that is spread far and wide.
"I started as a broker and worked my way up the ladder after my father's demise in 2009. Prior to that, I was studying and then working in a different field in the United States, but even there I would binge watch real estate reality TV. I joined YouTube in 2014," says Kewalramani who was recently in Goa shooting two luxury properties.
It was during the pandemic, when the real estate business was struck by fear, when Kewalramani decided to make content on YouTube. "The first two months of lockdown I trained myself in making videos and editing. In May 2020, I started shooting as a one-man show, using a wide angle 18 mm lens attached to my phone camera. Many of these videos were educational about property business and technical knowledge."
When nothing seemed to be working, Kewalramani had a breakthrough. And it didn't happen because of a luxury property, but through a simple 170-sq-ft space in DN Nagar, that had nothing charming about it. The video went viral, getting him one lakh views, leads, DMs and clients. "The place was an under construction small plot with cobwebs and sacks lying around. It was not a pretty sight, but that was the first video where I got in front of the camera, rather than being behind it. That is what made the cut. Other videos I made after that which did not have me in them, failed, so I realised it was the human connect people were looking forward to and that is what I stuck with," he says. Kewalramani's hook line, "what you see is what you get" transfers a simple message strongly and the detailed captions he puts out about every property, from its area to maintenance fee, rent or sale price, amenities and anything else a customer looks for in the first step to approaching a property, shows that the work is done with due diligence.
But how has new media come to the rescue of a traditional business with a foundation of brick and mortar? Founder of real estate company, Gupta and Sen, that deals in luxury properties in South Mumbai and the suburbs of Bandra, Khar, Juhu and Andheri west, Atin Dasgupta explains the phenomena. He says, "People love watching these videos. They get some sort of thrill from them, to be able to see interiors of celebrity houses and luxury properties, which they don't have access to. A majority of these people don't buy these places, but they are hooked, which still gives real estate a boost. These videos create a brand and give high recall value to the company."
Dasgupta entered the business seven years ago after working as a video producer in a TV network. He employs anchors, like VJs, to showcase the properties on YouTube. Their channel has around 65,000 subscribers with their most popular video being one from two years ago, of a sea facing duplex penthouse in South Mumbai. The video has two million views and is anchored by Tanya Narang, who is not a real estate agent herself.
A travel show host who moved from Bengaluru to Mumbai, Narang approached Gupta and Sen to anchor their videos. "People wanted to see the house from a common person's perspective, who was not a real estate agent just giving out boring details." Narang has also taken viewers on a tour of a four-BHK apartment in Khar West formerly occupied by Kareena Kapoor, which also has more than a million views.
What matters most is that the videos translate into business. Mumbai resident Suhail Khalil, who was able to sell out two of his properties with Merchant's uniquely aggressive marketing skills on social media, tells mid-day, "the reach of these videos is manifold, much more than a local buyer who has contacts in a couple of areas." For realtors like Merchant and Kewalramani, the journey is just beginning - they have now moved beyond Mumbai with cities like Ahmedabad, Pune, Delhi, Goa and Hyderabad in their sights.
