Reel estate: Meet the Instagram-savvy property agents changing how homes are bought

Bengaluru: Aflatoon (outstanding)... zordar (strong)... zabardast (fantastic). Rafique Merchant often uses these words during his virtual property tours on Instagram and YouTube. The real estate agent’s popularity on social media even saw him play a cameo in the 2023 Netflix movie Rana Naidu, where he plays himself. “I sell a crappy apartment to the actor Abhishek Banerjee in the movie,” Merchant laughs.

In real life, Mumbai-based Merchant, who started out a decade ago with small paying guest and one-bedroom rental deals, is a bit of a star in his own right, on social media. That star turn began early in 2021, when the Maharashtra government’s stamp duty exemption turned the Mumbai property market around. Merchant took to Instagram after TikTok was banned and ramped up his YouTube presence. There was no looking back after that. Today, he has 220,000 followers on Instagram and 134,000 subscribers on YouTube and his fame has taken him far and wide. His followers include first-time homebuyers, investors, sellers, and property enthusiasts.

“Once I became active on social media, I started getting calls from developers, digital agencies, property owners, even buyers. It became a lead-generation technique. Today, I market and sell properties in Kerala, Bengaluru, Goa, Dubai and London. I even have a team in Ahmedabad,” says Merchant. From earning ₹2 lakh a year, he now rakes in about ₹2 crore (last year), combining brokerage fees and influencer marketing as well as sales reels and videos. Merchant charges ₹3-5 lakh for a 90-second Instagram reel for a developer and ₹2-3 lakh for a 4-6-minute YouTube video.

Agents-turned-social media influencers such as Merchant are today changing the way people buy and sell property. They advise their followers on what to avoid, whom to trust, and give them a rundown of real estate basics. While it is a late entrant to the influencer marketing space, compared to other categories such as fashion, beauty or even food, the real estate sector has been catching up fast.

The role property agents play has evolved considerably since the pandemic, say experts, and become bigger and more important than ever. With developers breaking ground in new markets and also aiming to cater to rising demand from Millennials, Gen Z homebuyers, and Non-Resident Indians (NRI), brokers have been scrambling to adjust to these new realities. Many have taken to social media to cater to this audience, relying less on their traditional marketing and sales tools.

For instance, Saqib Ilyas, a second-generation property agent in Bengaluru, would earlier reach out to his clients through mailers after a project launch. But after watching experienced agents using Instagram, he realized it was a very effective marketing tool. Recently, after attending a pre-launch channel partner meet hosted by developer Prestige Group for its ‘Raintree Park’ in Whitefield, Ilyas posted an Instagram reel with a project walkthrough and all the details. “I can give people a tour of a property in 90 seconds. If a particular post gets 2,000 likes, (of them) about 100 people reach out to me,” says Ilyas, who took to the platform only a few months back.

But while social media has given brokers mass outreach and helped them generate leads, they still have to go that extra mile offline to clinch a sale, given that property buyers prefer to take a look in person, before they leap. In that sense, it is far easier for a fashion influencer to sell makeup on social media than for a realtor to sell a home.

A crucial sales link

Property agents are a critical part of the real estate industry, and form the backbone of the journey of any project, bringing in the largest share of the sales pie. Underlining this, a DLF spokesperson told Mint, “We view our channel partners as strategic partners, not merely as agents or brokers. They are integral to our distribution strategy and contribute significantly to our success.”

“Channel partners or brokers are crucial and bring in 70-80% of sales in a residential project. Property agents build customer relations over generations and act more like wealth managers in buying and selling their clients’ real estate,” says Anuj Puri, chairman of property advisory Anarock Group. Anarock works directly with developers, and as a master distributor it works closely with a network of brokers for property sales. It helped close around 15,500 home sales transactions in 2023-24, its highest ever since it was launched in 2016.

Prestige Group, which works with over 1,000 active channel partners in Bengaluru, says social media channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook allow brokers to reach a broader domestic and global audience and effectively showcase properties.

“Social media enables targeted advertising, empowering brokers to engage specific buyer segments and geographic markets,” says Praveer Srivastava, senior executive vice-president, residential, at Prestige Group. “The interactive dynamics of these platforms enable quick communication, allowing brokers to directly interact with clients and promptly address inquiries, thereby expediting the decision-making process.”

Collaborating with brokers who have a strong media presence has helped developers reach out to a wider and untapped customer base. “Buyers rely on brokers to negotiate and close deals. Influencer marketers are the show stealers, and digital marketing and social media have emerged as a most budget-friendly, effective tool,” says Parth Mehta, chairman and managing director of Mumbai-based Paradigm Realty, a developer.

Going global

Ravi Kewalramani has 1.1 million followers on Instagram. His firm, RK Mumbai Realtors operates in Mumbai, Lonavala, Goa and Dubai and does marketing and sales of primary, resale and lease deals in both residential and commercial properties. He also has a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. In his broadcasts, Kewalramani is chatty and casual, and often engages in banter with his followers.

The real estate market is expanding like never before. Indian property buyers want to invest in overseas markets and NRIs want to buy in India. For property agents and influencers like Kewalramani, this has opened up huge opportunities.

In September, Mumbai-based Kewalramani posted a reel of an apartment tour in Dubai’s ‘Emaar Grand Residences’ project. Clad in a suit, he showcased a plush three-bedroom apartment with a price tag of $2.4 million. Two weeks earlier, he had done a walkthrough of a seaview triplex penthouse in central Mumbai, which he said costs “only ₹120 crore”.

“Buyers from the Indian diaspora are across the world. We entered Lonavala and Goa after the pandemic. Then, we started selling projects in Dubai. We had queries from Brazil for a recent Instagram reel on a Dubai property,” says Kewalramani, who started marketing and sales on Instagram only in 2021. “I have had developers from Bali, Turkey, and the UK calling me to sell their properties, but I don’t have the bandwidth to take on more right now.”

Down South, Shiva Reddy is equally busy. “Depending on the time zone, our day starts with prospective buyers from Australia, then Singapore and Malaysia, and then US customers reach out at night,” says Reddy, 35, a third-generation property broker and vice president of Chennai-based Hanu Reddy Realty. “The conversion rate (in transactions) is about 2% now, but we expect that to go up significantly in the years to come,” says Reddy, who mainly does secondary or resale transactions. Reddy started marketing projects on Instagram a year back and has 28,700 followers. He showcases properties in six south Indian cities and Pune. The company is now entering Vijayawada as well.

When he is not showcasing properties, Reddy’s reels show him driving around various Chennai localities such as Poes Garden and TTK Road, where he shares a bit of history, talks about celebrities and politicians that are residents, and the property options in the area. He speaks in English and says he mainly caters to the Tamilians in the country and the Tamil diaspora around the world.

Even foreign developers have been looking to ride on the social media popularity of some of these agents. Recently, Merchant was invited to the UK by Barratt London, a developer, to market and sell their properties through his videos and reels. A large chunk of Barratt’s sales come from Indian buyers.

“Benham & Reeves (London-based property agents) facilitated my visit. I was there for 10 days and had a look at Barratt’s projects. Their 1 BHK in London costs around ₹4 crore. For the reels and videos I posted on Instagram, there were buyer enquiries from Delhi, Mumbai and Dubai,” says Merchant.

Indian developers, meanwhile, have been cashing in on the property influencers’ global connect. “In the past 2-3 years, our wide network of channel partners has helped us extend our reach not just across India but globally, allowing us to cross-sell the entire spectrum of our product portfolio. They are pivotal in our outreach to NRI markets,” says the DLF spokesperson cited earlier.

Millennial buyers

Ankush and Parnika Mohta, who live in Austin, Texas, have been scanning Instagram reels and YouTube videos for the past six months. The husband-wife duo, who are in their late 30s, are looking to buy a two-bedroom apartment in Mumbai. Come December, popularly known as the NRI season in real estate, the Mohtas plan to visit their hometown and finalize a deal.

“We have been in talks with a couple of agents after seeing the properties on social media. It’s a transparent and quick process. They asked us to fill up a form with our details, followed by calls to discuss our requirements. When we are in Mumbai, we will do a few site visits of the shortlisted properties and close the deal,” says Parnika, who works as a financial analyst.

“Property brokers’ presence on social media has become quite important because a decent share of buyers today are millennials,” says Anarock’s Puri. The average age of the followers of most property agents-cum-influencers on social media platforms is between 20-45 years. Many of them are potential homebuyers. Those in their early 30s and the entire IT or techie crowd use social media quite a lot to make buying decisions, Puri added.

Reddy agreed, saying, “Millennials consume content the most via social media. Our average customer demographic is 25-45 years.” A social media presence increases engagement, which is the highest on Instagram, and creates top-of-mind recall for customers, he noted. “So, one day, when they have a real estate requirement to buy or sell, they will remember the face on Instagram,” Reddy added.

Aditya Gurwara, co-founder and head of brand alliances at influencer marketing firm Qoruz, says real estate is a big-ticket category and tougher than those selling cheaper products. “A large part of the age group consuming content on social media is below 40 years. The fact that property agents are trying to get into this space and leads are being generated is a big leap,” says Gurwara.

Not just a broker

Mayank Agarwal started small, as a land broker on the outskirts of Mumbai, in 2012. Then, in mid-2021, he started posting what he calls educational videos and reels on Instagram. With 862,000 followers on Instagram, Agarwal talks about a range of issues, from GST rates on construction materials and investing in green buildings to bank foreclosure properties and second homes. He also has a podcast on YouTube called Real estate show with Mayank.

“I have positioned myself as a consultant, not an agent. I still operate my brokerage firm, but I don’t make a sales pitch on Instagram,” Agarwal says. Separately, he has also launched ‘Edstate’, an app, on which he runs online courses on real estate marketing, finance, law and construction.

The credibility and popularity that real estate brokers and influencers have gained have also prompted developers to monetize/utilize them beyond marketing and sales. Merchant, for instance, recently posted an Instagram reel for Macrotech Developers Ltd. He talks about how Macrotech, which operates under the ‘Lodha’ brand, is different from any other company named Lodha. “I was surprised by the response it got,” says Merchant.

This shift in real estate broking has also made senior, traditional brokers sit up and take note. Noida-based Manish Tiwari says that the slowdown in the real estate sector had led to an exodus of property agents before the pandemic. Now, with the turnaround, they are coming back. Older agents today have to compete with the new, younger, tech-savvy agents on social media. Tiwari says his firm has hired a mass communication student to make short videos of properties on YouTube.

It’s the beginning of a tipping point, says Kewalramani. “Digital marketing is the future. Just like the buyer and seller mindset is changing, even second-generation developers are realizing that it’s the way forward.”