EduMark Realty Education Services

Is A Career in Real Estate Brokerage for You?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:11:00 +0000

By S. K. Jha,

While you are reading this, there are more than three million people in India employed in property brokerage and leasing profession. These are in addition to those who work with housing finance companies, who are not counted as real estate professionals even though they too influence deals in this business.

Indian housing sector is today the second largest employer in the country and 269 industries are dependent upon this sector-such important is the role of real estate in the entire economy and brokers are considered the backbone of this important industry.

Real estate brokers, also known as advisors, consultants, agents etc. in day-to-day language, grow with the development of the economy. They advise people and influence decisions that shape the way we live and work. They initiative and close real estate deals and are the most important link in the real estate business chain.

A career in property broking is personally highly rewarding, ever-changing and challenging. Property consultants are known for making huge money which, with the growth of this business in India, made this profession highly lucrative and glamorous. However, this profession requires you to have certain knowledge, personality traits and skills in order to grow. Someone without this knowledge, traits and skills, may not be able to pull off.

Therefore, before taking the final decision to start your career in this profession, find out if you have the right potential.

Nature of job:

Property agents and brokers are usually independent property sales professionals who associate with many builders and developers to promote and market their existing as well as proposed properties in exchanges for a commission on per unit sale. Property brokers specialize in different types of real estate such as residential real estate, commercial real estate, retail real estate, industrial property, land etc. among many others. However, in India very few brokers have specialized in one particular segment. Most of them deal with all the available properties.

The Role:

You are an expert in sale and purchase of different types of properties. As an expert, you advise your clients about purchasing properties. Similarly, you advice investors about the right time, opportunity and location to invest into real estate. On day-to-day basis you deal with walk-in enquiries and call potential home buyers from your database. You also generate leads of potential buyers thorough various online and off line activities. You also attend seminars and exhibitions and sell face-to-face.

Skill sets required:
People skills   -                  Very High
Client focused -                 Very High
Self-starter    -                  Very High
Negotiation ability-            High
Sales skills     -                 Very High
Communication skills-       High
Computer Skills-               Medium to Low
Analytical skills-                Medium
Creative ability-                Medium
Self-Initiative-                  Very High

Hours of working:

Like any other entrepreneur and self-employed person, you do not have a set working time when you start your own broking firm. You need to be present, whenever there is a call that requires your presence. Remember, if you are not there, your competitor will be there because Indian property market has become highly competitive. In this market, you need to have a better professional approach to survive as well as grow. This is a full time job and in most of the cases you need to work even at odd hours.

Internet Resources:

Real estate jobs: Naurki.com; http://www.naukri.com/
Real Estate Courses for Brokers: EduMark Realty Education Services; http://www.edumarkindia.in/

Compensation:

Income in this profession depends totally depends upon the level initiative and input. The more you work, the better the income will be. Infact some of the wealthiest people in the world have made it in this market. Remember if you are in broking profession, you do not have a fixed salary but you get a commission on sale of each unit. So, even if you are able to sale one unit of property every month, priced in the range of USD 5 million, your monthly earning would be approximately USD 0.01 million. But remember you have office establishment and fixed cost every month.

S.K.Jha is a senior real estate professional with particular interest in the Indian property market

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=S._K._Jha

Top 5 Things You Should Know to Help Sell Your Home Fast

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Top 5 Things You Should Know to Help Sell Your Home Fast

RISMEDIA—While many markets around the country continue to experience challenges as the market makes its slow turnaround, Ann Arbor real estate is selling fast, and it’s because we follow some simple rules.

1. Curb appeal is key to selling your home

If it looks rundown from the outside, then it probably is on the inside too. Curb appeal is all about first impressions. Buyers want to feel like they could live in a home from the moment they pull up in front of it. Basic improvements such as exterior painting, cutting the grass and planting some flowers improve the look of a home from the outside tremendously.

2. Deodorize

Every home has a unique odor, especially if pets are present. Be sure to professionally clean the carpet and the furniture and replace carpets if necessary. Keep pets clean and the home free from dander. Consider taking pets and pet cages if present in the home with you when you leave for showings.

3. Really want to sell your home? Repair and repaint

A little putty and paint can make all the difference. Repair damaged dry wall, gouges in wood surfaces and paint the walls. Bright colors such as those in children’s rooms should be repainted with a neutral color. We like to repaint our Ann Arbor homes with a neutral shade that will be attractive to a wide variety of buyers.

4. Put away your personal collections

Here, the old saying that one man’s treasure is another man’s junk rings true. De-clutter your home by packing up knick-knacks, heirlooms, personal collections, and even family photos. After all, they are special only to you and your goal is to make the home presentable to the widest number of people possible. Expensive collections should be packed away as well to keep them safe.

5. No guns, drugs or valuables

If you own a gun, be sure it’s unloaded and lock it away. Don’t leave it accessible to anyone viewing your home, especially anyone with children. The same is true for prescription drugs, fine jewelry, valuable art work, money and anything else you want to keep safe.

Sharon Snyder is the President and CEO of Prudential Snyder & Company Realtors in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Real Estate Contact & Prospect Management

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:34:00 +0000

James Kimmons*

It's always interesting to see a successful real estate agent or broker working hard and long to keep their information systems updated, their listing information accurate and closing transactions on track.

Then, when you hear that same REALTOR® discussing their next training or continuing education, it's a course or seminar on building more business. So they learn some new business building strategies, which if they work, will have them working longer and harder, with the probability of quality degradation and dropped balls increasing. Since repeat business and referrals are so important in this business, a seamless transaction without major upset should be everyone's goal.

Most of us would do just as well building business if we devote the time and energy to implement strategies we already know. By using sensible technology to manage your contacts, listings and transactions for efficiency, you can free up valuable time to do the behaviors and activities necessary to grow your business.

Many of those in that growth phase of the business curve make the decision to put on one or more assistants. Then they have to take the time to train and manage, not even talking about the overhead expense. Not that I'm against assistants, as we'll talk about how to make your team more efficient with intranets in a section devoted to intranets. However, what if you could do more in less time and with more accuracy. You could delay that first assistant and save that overhead expense in time and money. Let's bullet some of the important things we need in Real Estate Contact and Project Management integration:

We need to keep track of contacts and buyer/listing prospects with their contact information.
Once we have the contacts in our database, we need to be able to market to them via email, snail mail and/or telephone.
Once a listing prospect becomes an active listing, we need the ability manage the listing process. This includes tasks with reminders for the many to-do's required to set up and maintain a listing.
We need to regularly communicate what we've done for that listing, including marketing and other progress.
Once we put a listing under contract, or write a contract for a buyer, we need to manage the closing transaction requirements and progress. This includes a large number of deadlines and tasks that need to happen in a timely and accurate manner.
We need to report to our client the progress of the transaction, including its related inspections, appraisals, etc.
After closing, we want the ability to regularly communicate with our client to keep our name in their mind for future referrals.

Those are the basic requirements for a good solid real estate contact and project management plan. Some are doing all of these things. Some are doing some of them. All too many are doing few of these things. Contact management is probably the most-used of the two, but there are a lot of us who do not have a good project management solution in place. Thus we don't have all those tasks pre-built so that we can just apply them to a new listing or closing and have the task list create itself.

Author is a About.com Guide

Preparing Your Sellers for Home Showings

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:52:00 +0000

Introduce sellers to the realities of showing their home

You've already talked with your sellers about the physical work involved to get a home ready to show, but have you mentioned other events that may take place while the house is on the market? Giving home sellers a basic education in Buyers 101 will help prepare them for the realities of showing their house.

Be Ready to Show at All Times

Sellers should be aware that same-day and even last-minute requests for showings are common, so a seller with a '24 hour notice to show' stipulation often cuts himself out of a good chunk of the buying market. The only standard hefty lag time that should be necessary is when you must give ample notice to a tenant.

Once a house gets tagged difficult to show by agents, you won't receive as many calls to show it. If sellers choose to make showings difficult, be sure to tell them now that it will cut down on showings--and fewer showings equals fewer potential buyers.

Keep it Flexible

Explain to your home sellers that most agents do try to arrive within the scheduled showing time, but sometimes it isn't possible. They may get stuck in traffic, or the house they saw prior to your showing took longer than expected. It happens, and sometimes it happens too late to be fixed by a phone call.

Encourage sellers to stay away from home a little longer than they think is necessary, just to make sure they don't interrupt a showing.

Sellers Who Want to Be Present

This is nearly always a bad idea. Sellers think agents and buyers won't be able to find everything, that they must be there to point out important features. Truthfully, most just want to be present to see buyer reaction firsthand.

Sellers should be aware that at the very least buyers feel uncomfortable when they are present, and that it can actually kill a sale. Buyers often won't even open closet or cabinet doors when the seller is home, and when they cannot view a house comfortably, they'll hurry up and move on to the next one.

Sellers want to talk, and not just about the house. You never know when a buyer will be turned off by the mood of the seller, or by a statement the seller makes. Buyers are there to look at the house, not chit chat about hobbies or the weather or worse--politics and other controversial topics.

If sellers must be home during a showing, counsel them to go outside or stay put in one location, not wander around with the agent and buyers.

Sellers Who Want YOU To Be Present for All Showings

If you're selling a large estate or complicated property, it might be the norm to plan on being present for all showings, but it's not necessary or smart for the typical house.

Explain that other agents generally feel uncomfortable with the selling agent hanging around, listening to and participating in conversations with potential buyers. If the other agent is representing the buyers as a buyer's agent, she won't be free to have open discussions about the house in front of you.

There's another negative that may be more important: busy agents don't have time to work around your schedule. Requiring the listing agent to be present for all showings is another way to give the house that difficult to show reputation.

If your sellers are worried about theft of small items, they should store them away. Packing up collections and small personal items is part of the process they should have already gone through to prepare the house for showings.

Pets Must Be Controlled

Pets should be out of the house during showings, especially large dogs, since many people are afraid of them. A gruff bark coming from inside the house is enough to make some home buyers turn around at the front door.

If there are pet odors, talking with your seller about the subject can be tricky, because most people are not aware of odors in their own home. You may need to conjure up your best be-tactful mode to deal with that subject, but it must be dealt with. Your sellers don't want buyers to remember the home as the house that smells.

Gaining Seller Cooperation

Share showing information in a 'did you know this about buyers' tone, rather than simply telling a seller what he must do. Explaining why these steps are important helps sellers realize that it's in their best interests to comply.

Consider putting showing advice on paper in an easy-to-read format. Give the seller a day or so to digest the information, then ask if he has any questions about the information.
Show that you respect the seller's opinions by asking what he thinks are the home's best features, then spotlight those features in a flyer or brochure that can be left on a table for prospective buyers.

Sellers usually just want to help. It's up to you to figure out a way to give them a role in the sales process, one that is truly helpful and that won't have a negative impact on showings.

NAR & CREDAI Join Hands to Bring Transparency and Ethics in Real Estate Sector

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:11:00 +0000

National Association of Realtors India (NAR-India) and Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (Credai) have come together to bring transparency and ethics in property sales and other service offerings to customers. The two associations signed an agreement of cooperation to this effect on the sidelines of NAR-India’s third annual convention here.

“This initiative will help us in streamlining the brokerage process and to scale up the brokerage industry. We want to create a common language of fair and ethical practices among the realtor community to give a better service to customers,” PSN Rao, chairman of NAR-India, said. Brokers and builders are the two key stakeholders of the real estate industry and it is imperative that a synergy is cultivated between the two, according to him. The association represents about 14,000 brokers across the country. Credai president Lalit Kumar Jain said the collaboration between the two associations would also help reduce property prices.

The 12th Plan envisages a requirement to build 27 million dwellings even as the rapid growth in urbanisation is expected to add another 60 million people in the cities and towns by 2020, according to him. “Policy makers have to think of taking steps, including reducing the approval time lines, to make housing affordable to all sections. We need to create a decent accommodation for every person in the city and avoid mushrooming of urban slums,” Jain said.

Double-digit pay hikes, robust hiring on the cards in India, says Mercer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:48:00 +0000

Double-digit salary increases and creation of new jobs will continue in the Indian economy, says a survey conducted by the consulting firm, Mercer. According to the Mercer India Monitor, a study of 90 companies released last week, India Inc is expected to provide an average salary hike of 12.7%, with the automobiles sector providing an estimated 14% hike, with IT & Telecom at the lower end of the spectrum, with 11.8%.

Salary hikes across sectors, however , remain higher than last year, with the exception of pharmaceuticals , where the increase is estimated to be about 12.8% in 2011, down from 13% last year. Other sectors like chemicals may see a 13.4% salary increment, while consumer durables , financial services & insurance and manufacturing are likely to dole out hikes of 13.8%, 12.6% and 13.4% respectively.

Salary increments have, however, not touched the high of 2006-07 , when the average increments were close to 15% across industry, but may eventually do so. “If the current trend continues, salary increases could go back to the levels of 2006-07 ,” says Shamita Chatterjee, market business leader (information product services) at Mercer India. “Because of a significant churn in the market and recruitment of fresh graduates, as well as early promotions as a retention measure, the overall wage movements are no more than 8%.”

Actual salary increases for 2010 stood at 11.8% Companies appear to have factored in inflation when planning increments and drawing up business plans. “About 42% of the companies surveyed have already implemented measures to fight inflation,” says Chatterjee. “Like increasing travel and fuel allowances. About 38% of the companies say they will provide an additional 5% salary increase to combat inflationary depletion of income, while another 1% say they will provide for 2-3 % additional increase.”

At the same time, some companies are also cutting down on travel (especially for training) and allowing employees more work-from-home options, Chatterjee adds. Hiring is also likely to continue, as two-thirds (67%) of employers said they would conduct both fresh and replacement hiring. About 80-83 % of respondents, in chemicals, consumer and IT & telecom, echoed the same thought, as did 67% of employers in pharma and 72% in manufacturing .

According to the India Monitor , most jobs are expected to be created in functions such as sales, marketing and technical and engineering , with at least half of the respondents expecting to increase their employee headcount in these areas, from 2010 levels. Also, about one-third of employers surveyed said they will hire in other functions such as HR, finance and accounting and information technology. “Hiring decisions do not seem to be affected by the economic upheavals that we are witnessing in the current scenario,” says Chatterjee.

Article Courtesy – Economic Times

The Right Technology to Enhance Your Real Estate Business

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:27:00 +0000

In today’s world, controlling your personal and professional relationship is the key to success. Infact success in real estate business starts with relationships.

However, with the advent of social and professional networking sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin etc. though staying in touch with more number of people from your network has become easier, the process itself has become complex. This is because of the sheer number of friends or colleagues who are in your network or group. On the other hand, however large network you have, you can’t take risk of ignoring anybody in your network because may be it is one of your former colleague who introduces you to a potential customer who gives you a landmark deal. Or a classmate in your network, working in another organization, may help you secure a key partnership. Therefore you need to stay in touch with your network more effectively to create new opportunities.

In other words, with the increasing importance of social and professional networking sites, you need a tool that can help you maximize the potential of your relationships by helping you build rapport with new people, stay in touch with people in your network, and find the right person for the task at hand.

While looking for an application with these features, I stumbled upon ConnectedHQ. Though, some improvements may be required in this application, overall it seems perfect for real estate professionals. It offers the benefits of:

real estate contact & prospect management
social network integration
e-mail integration with contacts and prospects
calendar appointments scheduling
task management
extensive notes management synced with contacts & easy to enter & search notes

Cost of the application seems reasonable compared to other such applications available in the market. But before using this application, you yourself find out more about ConnectedHQ to see its usability for your specific needs.

Indian Angel Network invests in GrOffr.com: a Real Estate group buying pioneer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Indian Angel Network, India's first and largest business angel investor group, invested in a real estate group buying pioneer, GrOffr.com to help them expand their reach in India. GrOffr.com, co-founded by management school classmates and colleagues at a large financial services firm Sandeep Reddy and Vikhyat Srivastava in 2010, helps customers in getting attractive rates for their planned purchases of Real Estate, Cars and other high value assets. By leveraging the power of group buying, GrOffr allows customers get lucrative deals from builders in the primary real estate market. IAN invested under US$1 million.

IAN member Mr. Krishna Jha, who serves on the board of the company believes that GrOffr is a differentiated business idea in the real estate asset category with large potential for savings for end customers.

Indian Angel Network, operating nationally, with over 170 investors from across the globe, brings together successful Indian entrepreneurs and CEOs who share a passion to enable more early stage businesses to create scale and value. By focusing on startups, the Network addresses the current acute lack of funds available to early stage companies. IAN also seeks to provide mentoring, strategic thought leadership and leverage the Network's network for the investee companies.

IAN investors invest in ventures that have uniquely differentiated propositions, high quality execution teams and large markets. What began as an initiative "for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs", has now grown into the most complete early stage angel investing network covering range of activities--right from incubation, mentoring and of course investing in differentiated ideas.

Real Estate Education enhances transparency, professionalism & business volume

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:50:00 +0000

by S.K.Jha*

Real estate broking profession lacks credibility and is always looked at with suspicion. However, the credibility of this profession can be enhanced through real estate education. A thoroughly planned system of real estate education can not only improve the credibility of property professionals by inculcating numerous changes in the profession but also enhance the business volume of educated and certified professionals. Suitably planned real estate courses, targeted at different functional areas in real estate, can teach property professionals the much better, profitable and convenient way of doing real estate business. Few of the key changes that education system can bring into real estate business and property market are as follows:

Transparency in transaction and business professionalism: Knowledge enhances transparency and professionalism and this is true for real estate market also. Today, several property brokers are active in the market without any structured knowledge of property sales and transaction process and therefore they are forced to provide wrong and partial information to their clients. They are not able to close the deal properly, mostly at the cost of prospective home buyers, because they have not studied how property ownership is verified, acquired, transferred and leased. In the Indian real estate market, there is a sub set of property advisors, who want to upgrade their knowledge and skill but are unable to do so in the absence of a system of real estate education in which they can study as well as run their business.

In this scenario, a proper system of real estate education consisting of a network of real estate institutes offering full time, part time, evening, week end, distance and online real estate courses could have improved the subject knowledge of professionals and in turn would have improved transparency in property transactions and professionalism in the property business, especially property consulting business. A point to be mentioned here is the initiative of EduMark realty education services which offers courses for those looking for real estate jobs as well as for existing property professionals looking for professional development. EduMark is the first and only institute in India that offers full time, part time, week end, evening, distance and online courses.

Customer Service Efficiency: A knowledgeable and informed property advisor can serve his clients effectively and efficiently which in turn increases his demands in the market. Such demands increase his overall volume of business because one satisfied customer can create ten new customers. However, structured knowledge and information come only through structured system of education.

Real estate subject knowledge and business volume: It is an established fact that buyers tend to prefer a knowledgeable advisor (knowledge displayed through his educational qualification) more than that of an advisor who is not well informed and knowledgeable. However, in the absence of real education system, real estate courses and real estate institutes, property brokers can’t display their knowledge because they can’t acquire any suitable real estate qualification and therefore potential home buyers can’t identify the best suited advisor.

Business ethics and business volume: By offering fraudulent advice, one can derive benefits in short term but it is a net loss in long term. This is very true for property brokers also. This is because, as mentioned above, one satisfied customer can create ten new customers but one dis-satisfied customer can dissuade hundreds of potential clients, so the losses are many folds. However, this fact can be explained to these property consultants only if they are inclined towards learning and there is sufficient opportunity for such learning.

Real estate jobs and cost of recruitment and training: One of the most important impacts of real estate education is on real estate jobs; While real estate courses offer a platform to potential candidates to start their career in real estate by taking up suitable real estate jobs, it reduces the cost that employers make on the training of new employees. Those candidates who have done a real estate course are already trained and ready for real estate jobs and therefore employers do not need to arrange fresh training of the such employees, which saves time and money both.

Overall, a proper system of real estate education enhances not only the transparency in transaction and business professionalism but also the business volume of the market players. Another advantage is the reduction in training and employee orientation cost.
* S.K.Jha is CEO of EduMark Realty Education Services

A Better Approach Towards Training ‘Fresh-Out-Of-College Grads’

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:53:00 +0000

It was about 65°F when we walked into the large auditorium at the west end of the college campus. Since it was late autumn, the leaves were turning yellow and the evening was turning dark earlier. You could see the street lights from the top-end of the glass enclosures of the room. It was the start of our winter quarter.

He shuffled slightly first and then picked up his pace as he made his way to the lectern. But it was not the fleece that he wore over his pale yellow shirt that struck me as odd; it was more his shoes, or lack of them. They seem out of place in the nippy air, I thought.

As Dr Lomanoco made his way to the podium, it was clear that he intended to waste little time introducing either himself or the course, to 29 eager computer science graduates. After distributing the course schedule, his office hours (times and days) and grading system, he proceeded to outline the homework for the next week. What, I thought, homework? Even before we were taught anything? What kind of a system is that?

It was the ‘learn on your own’ system, aka ‘figure it out yourself.’

Having finished my undergrad from India, I thought it would be customary for specific topics to be covered in the class by the professor, and then we’d proceed to review the same at home, do a homework piece and finally, prepare for exams. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Nope. That was not the case either for us at UMBC at the Master’s or for the undergrads in the Bachelor of Sciences programme.

You were to read and learn on your own. If you had questions, you’d either ask them during the professor’s ‘office hours’ or ask the teaching assistant during their sessions.

The thing that it teaches is the ‘way to learn’ on your own. By searching for it on your own, or researching with your study group. By digging for more information, either online or hitting the books at the library.

So when I joined Cisco after graduating, it was second nature to research practically everything yourself to get things done. Sometimes we’d RTFM. Most times we’d try, fail and learn. I never went to a Perl programming course, neither did I attend an Apache configuration class. We just tried stuff, broke stuff, learnt stuff.

But that’s not what I find with the folks being hired from many good colleges and schools in India. It is mandatory to go through 3-6 months of training. What? I thought they did just that for the last four years. I had five candidates whom we interviewed a year ago and they wanted to know what our start-up’s “training programmes for PHP and Java” were. Code and learn – was my answer. They looked at me with disbelief. One young lady’s parents (who came for the interview to ensure we are a legitimate company) asked us how we could expect fresh graduates to do any work without training them. If we wanted to train graduates, we’d be running a college, was my reply. Wrong answer. She did not join us.

I am hoping there are colleges which are trying to teach students how to learn, where to find stuff to learn and how to research topics. I would love to think this style of learning is limited to engineering programmes. No, that’s not the case. My chartered accountant spends 2-3 hours daily with the intern teaching him some of the most basic things in accounting. He’s a commerce graduate from a very good college.

There has to be a better approach than the hand-holding we do in most undergraduate programmes. Even if we undertake a single class on teaching folks ‘how to learn,’ we’d be doing an enormous service to them. So, this is an appeal to college professors in any college. Please teach your students ‘how to learn.’

So how do people ‘learn to learn?’

1. By example: I believe this is the number 1 way to learn anything. Looking at lots of examples. Sample code. Example blueprints. Creating balance sheets of real companies without looking at their details.

2. By trying: Sharad Sharma calls it ‘being a hobbyist.’ Try stuff. Break stuff. That’s when you learn stuff.

3. By teaching: If you learn something, I would encourage you to share it with your team in a small lunch-and-learn session. It is not for them to learn. It is for you to reinforce your learning.

Now, did you figure out how to learn?

P.S. As you can see from the first paragraph, I was hoping I’d be a best-selling novelist. I’m glad I took up working with technology instead.

Source: VCCircle

Tax saving in a gift pack

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 14:57:00 +0000

Mail Today, On Friday 1 July 2011, 11:05 AM

Do you have some excess cash that you want to invest? Maybe you can think of an indirect method of investing (that is not in your own name), and save some tax on the income. Investing in assets or financial instruments directly in your own name will increase your tax liability and could also push you into a higher tax bracket.

You can take a slightly circuitous route on investments for better mileage. One way of saving on taxes is to gift your children and parents assets and cash for investments.

As per the current laws, any gift received in cash or kind exceeding Rs 50,000 is taxed in the hands of the recipient as "income from other sources". However, this rule does not apply to gifts received from relatives. Additionally, any gift received on the occasion of your marriage, under a will or inheritance is not taxed in your hands.

So who is a relative and what is a gift for the purpose of claiming tax benefits? "Relatives, for the purpose of taxation, include spouse of the individual, siblings, brothers and sisters of the spouse, brothers and sisters of the parents, and any lineal ascendant or descendant of the individual or the spouse," says Vikas Vasal, executive director, KPMG India.

As for gifts, the income-tax (IT) laws say any transfer of money in cash or through a cheque as well as transfer of movable or immovable assets, such as property, shares and securities, jewellry, paintings and sculptures, is considered as a gift. When you transfer a property, you may have to get the transfer registered, which attracts stamp duty and registration charge.

"The Indian tax laws do not contain mandatory provisions to have a gift deed (a registered legal document with appropriate witnesses) in case of transfer by way of gifts. However, it is always preferred to have a gift deed so as to avoid any gift being considered as taxable or being considered as unexplained cash, investments or assets," says Sonu Iyer, partner, tax and regulatory services, Ernst & Young, India.

Though there is no tax on gifts, all gifts in excess of Rs 50,000 (other than those from relatives) and income generated through them get clubbed with the recipient's taxable income. However, income earned by assets gifted to minor children, spouse and son's spouse are included in the income of the donor for taxation.

If you want the money earned to be treated as independent income of your minor children, spouse or son's spouse, you will have to prove that the recipients had used their own acumen for making money from the gifted assets. It might not be easy to satisfy the taxman that the income through the asset you gifted is not a passive investment income and has been earned independently by your spouse or minor children. So the easiest way of saving tax is by gifting money or assets to your major children and parents who don't have any income of their own.

Let's assume that your parents are senior citizens (above 60) and have no income. You can gift them any amount of cash for investing in high- return instruments such as senior citizen's savings scheme.

As senior citizens do not have to pay any tax for annual income up to Rs 2.5 lakh, the interest income does not become taxable unless it exceeds this exemption limit. This means you can invest up to Rs 25 lakh through each of your senior parents without any source of income if the annual interest or return is 10 per cent.

You can invest up to Rs 50 lakh through your senior parents and have a tax-free annual income of Rs 5 lakh. If your parents are above 80, they are entitled to tax- free income up to Rs 5 lakh per year for "very senior citizen" category introduced in the 2011-12 Union Budget. You can invest up to Rs 50 lakh through each of your "very senior citizen" parents in instruments that give 10 per cent annual return and avoid the taxman for interest income up to Rs 10 lakh earned by both of your parents together.

You can save a total of Rs 3 lakh (30 per cent of Rs 10 lakh earned as interest income) in tax each if you are in the highest tax bracket. So you can invest a total of Rs 1 crore through your parents and save up to Rs 6 lakh in taxes on the interest income of Rs 10 lakh. If you gift the money to your major daughter for investment, the interest earned from the amount will be taxable only after it crosses the exemption limit of Rs 1.9 lakh annual income.

The income from money invested through your son above 18 will become taxable when it exceeds Rs 1.8 lakh annually. Even when the interest income brings the recipient into the tax net, you still have the advantage of paying less tax then what you would have paid on investing directly.

If you have both parents above 80 and two major daughters, you can invest up to Rs 1.88 crore and have a tax-free income of up to Rs 18.8 lakh. Even if you don't have major children, you can still save taxes by creating a trust for benefiting your minor children.

Now, when you start planning your taxes for the current financial year, make use of this provision to save big on taxes. Make use of the gifting provisions to optimise taxes while making your family financially secure. As you will be giving money on the basis of mutual trust, be sure that the recipient won't take undue advantage of your trust.

Jerry Greenfield on the Key Ingredients of Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:41:00 +0000

David Walker, Corporate Communications; Source: Credit Suisse

Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Homemade Inc., shares his views on the importance of social awareness for entrepreneurs and the success of his values-led ice cream business. The interview was conducted during the annual Entrepreneurs Summit at the Sundance Resort in Utah, organized by Credit Suisse Private Banking USA.

David Walker: Sir, your company was socially responsible before that really was en vogue. How did you inculcate that in your business?
Jerry Greenfield: I think it was an evolutionary process for Ben and me to want to have Ben and Jerry's be more of a socially responsible company. In the beginning, we were just trying to be a little community-based company and have little festivals or whatever. And I think as the business became more successful, we started to understand the role that business plays in society and that we could have a bigger impact.

It has to be gratifying that the market really has moved to a point where most companies see it as responsible and as good business to be socially responsible. How do you see that evolution?

There has been an enormous shift. Some of it comes from the companies themselves, some of it comes from consumers, who are insisting that businesses be more concerned about what goes on in society. It's interesting to see the power that people in the marketplace have. When consumers speak, businesses listen.

You mentioned that fair trade is very important, as well as locally sourced products. Is that something you followed at Ben and Jerry's? Were you looking to get your milk from Vermont farms?

Yes. You know, when we looked at the impact that Ben and Jerry's has, a lot of it is simply in the ingredients that go into our ice cream. We're big users of milk and cream and then you think of the flavorings and whatever. Looking at the ingredients and what we think of as values-led sourcing has become of primary concern in the company.
It started off with Vermont milk. Then it became hormone free milk. We try to get products like brownies from bakeries that are doing good work in the community and now, the most recent is the company's commitment to become a hundred percent fair trade globally for a hundred percent of our products by the end of 2013. So that's going to become quite a challenge logistically for the folks at Ben and Jerry's. Everybody is completely on board philosophically, but it's about how do you make it happen? I think we have a hundred and twenty or more different ingredients or add-ins, so there's a bit of work to be done.

What do you hope that the audience and those entrepreneurs that you spoke with tonight take away from your remarks?

There are a lot of people in business who are concerned about social or environmental issues and they want these issues to be part of their business. But they either don't know how to do it or they don't know if it's going to make them less profitable or less likely to succeed. And what I try to share with people is Ben's and my experience that not only will it not make you less successful, in our case it made the company much more successful. And just because the conventional wisdom says one thing doesn't mean that it's true. If you're a business person who wants to integrate social and environmental concerns into your day-to-day business, you can do it and be incredibly successful.

EduMark CEO Invited to Deliberate Upon Educational Framework in Construction & Infrastructure Sector

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 17:27:00 +0000

Union Government is planning to create a national vocational educational framework pertaining to construction and infrastructure sector in the country. In this regard, a meeting of experts has been convened on 27^th June, 2011 at Delhi under the chairmanship of Shri Kapil Sibbal, Hon’ble Minister for Human Resource Development and Communication & Information Technology. CEO of EduMark Realty Education Services has been invited in the meeting to deliberate upon the issues. EduMark is India’s first real estate focused Vocational Education and Training Organization. Hon’ble MOS for HRD, Dr. D. Purandeshwari is also expected to attend the program.

Government recognizes the need and is looking to formally integrate vocational education together with its current conventional educational streams across schools and higher education space and provide an opportunity and incentive to students to explore a larger universe of opportunity.

This is an imperative need, considering 40% of India’s population falls within the age group of 21-35 years. In order to serve the aspirations of India’s youth, this step from government will spell a seminal moment that needs to be deliberated and reiterated together with the help of the industry. The basic objective is to augment and optimize the Human Resource.

Shri S.S.Mantha, Chairman of All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), who extended the invitation, expects that EduMark will contribute effectively through an overview of its systems and nuances and provide the experts a comprehensive and insightful input pertaining to present and perceived need-gaps from the domain of Construction and Infrastructure Sector. This will enable the Government to prepare a holistic framework to support the industry.

Credai Evaluating Possibility to Replicate Pune’s Onsite Training Model for Other States

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:21:00 +0000

The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (Credai), the apex body for private real estate developers in the country, is currently evaluating the possibility of replicating the onsite training model for construction workers, being implemented by its Pune chapter, to more states shortly. “At present, Credia’s national skills development committee is studying the model and is in the process of doing certain modifications to it. We have already received enquires from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand , Orissa and Mumbai for implementing the same,” C Sekhar Reddy, vice-president, Credai India and president of Credai Andhra Pradesh, told Business Standard. Credai Pune, under the aegis of the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), provides onsite training to construction workers in plastering, masonry, plumbing, electrical works, tile-laying and other allied activities with a Rs 18-crore fund sanctioned by NSDC last year.

Reddy said lack of skilled labour was a cause for concern and the construction industry was currently facing a 30 per cent shortage of skilled workers. “Onsite training will bridge this gap,” he said. In onsite training, the training campus shifts to the construction site rather than the trainees shifting to a fixed campus. “It (onsite training) improves productivity and quality, besides providing an earn-while-you-learn’ opportunity to the workers. A certificate will be given to the worker who has passed the training, which will entitle him to a better pay,” Reddy said. Reddy said recession, which was followed by the agitations for a separation Telangana statehood, dealt a blow to the real estate sector in Hyderabad, resulting in the sales plummeting by 25-30 per cent.

“Since October 2010, the sector is doing well and we expect to witness sales of 18,000 units a year in Hyderabad, from 10,000 units until two years ago. This projected uptick will primarily be driven by the increase in employment opportunities in the city,” he added. Meanwhile, Credia India, represents over 6,000 developers through 20 member associations across the country, today announced Ashoka Developers and Builders managing director N Jaiveer Reddy as chairman of Credai Hyderabad, Manjeera Group chairman Yoganand Gajjala as its president and SMR Holdings chairman and managing director S Ram Reddy as general secretary.

How to Become a Real Estate Investment Analyst

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:00:00 +0000

by S.K.Jha, EduMark Realty Education Services

Real estate investment analysts are the most important and vital element in real estate investment decision making process and in optimization of the performance of currently held portfolio of investors. Their prime responsibility is to find out the feasibility of making investment in any real estate project, either now or in future. Their specific activities include collation, compilation and analysis of large amount of information about a potential project, carry out financial analysis, valuation modeling, cash flow analysis etc., understand and analyze operating statements, capital budgets, rent rolls, tenant leases etc. and analyze third party reports. Property investment analysts prepare property analysis and investment report. They are closely associated with the investment and acquisition process and work actively with asset managers to identify under performing assets and to optimize portfolio performance.

Working Environment

The normal working time is 40-hour per week. However, during project acquisition and/or investment period, they may have to work longer and on weekends in order to meet project deadline. They work closely with internal staffs, external consultants and other professionals. Internally they work very closely with investment as well as asset management team. Externally, they deal with a host of professionals including research professionals, property consultants, project development managers etc.

Employers
Property investment funds, equity investors, high net worth individuals etc. are the major employers of investment analysts. However, large developers, international property consultants, advisory firms also recruit property analysts.

Employment Prospect

Since Indian property market is in the growth phase and offers one of the highest rates of return to investors, global investors are setting up their base in India, which in turn has enhanced the need for investment analysts. Therefore, employment and growth prospect for them are expected to remain very strong in the coming future.

Education
Educational background in real estate, finance, investment, urban planning, commerce etc. is preferred. Educational background in property related subjects is however most preferred for career advancement.

Knowledge, Skills, and Personality Traits

Employers prefer candidates with following qualities:

• Good analytical skill
• Excellent written, verbal and listening skills
• Good decision making ability
• Excellent problem solving skills
• Ability to work under pressure and strict deadline
• Report writing skills

Similarly, candidates with knowledge in the following areas are highly preferred:
• Accounting journal entry
• Spread sheet accounting programs
• Analytical software such as ARGUS
• Design, graphs, charts, tables etc. for presentation
• Excel spread sheet etc.

Compensation
Analysts are among the highest paid professionals today. Moreover, salary range rises very fast after having two to three years of work experience.

Tips for entry: If you are working as analyst in other sector, pursue a real estate course in any related area from a reputed real estate institute and then approach employers either directly or through placement consultants. Institutes such as NIREM, EduMark Realty Education http://www.edumarkindia.in/ etc. offer several related real estate courses. Infact, EduMark offers to highly specialized courses in investment. These are certificate in residential investment and certificate in commercial investment, which may be of great use to those planning to start their career as analyst.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=S._K._Jha

Ready aim hired

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Perceptions about interviews usually depend on the interviewer's likeability and first impressions.

by Aspire - India Today

Right after a job interview, you could either be supremely confident or faintly worried. Either way, we feel pretty relieved when it is all over. Perceptions about interviews usually depend on the interviewer's likeability and first impressions. It is, therefore, important to remember some statutory courtesies in order to have a positive interaction and favourable result.

After an interview shoot a thank you email or letter

Many interviewees think that once the face-to-face interview is over, the interview process is complete. However, this is not the case. The job interview is just the beginning. Once the personal interview is done, the company mulls, evaluates and decides the best candidate who would best suit the job profile and company.

Therefore, it is a good idea to remain in touch with the interviewer and the company in general. One of the best ways to do so is to drop them a ?Thank You? note. If you have been in touch with company or interviewer via e-mail, then one should email such a note within 24 hours after the interview. Interviewers have short memories. So, this is your final chance to stand apart from all of the others who want the same position.

Follow up after the interview when there is no response

How long should you wait before you call the company or interviewer? Usually, if there is no response within sometime, you will start worrying about whether it is appropriate to call back and check hiring status.

When to call

Post-interview it is best to give a gap of two to three days before you make the first follow up call. One of the most important things to keep in mind during the call is that one should be succinct and brief. Another important aspect is to chalk out a time when to call. The best time to call the interviewer is after lunch or an hour before closing time. This will ensure that you have a comfortable time frame to speak to the interviewer.

Whom to call

Interviewees are sometimes confused about who to follow up with after the interview the human resource team or the interviewer directly. This situation is more confusing if there was more than one interviewer. In such circumstances, it is best to first check with the human resource team on the hiring status.

What to say

Begin the conversation by thanking the person for the opportunity to interview with the company. Recap some of the conversational highlights and clarify any information you need to check on. Use the last paragraph as the chance to state, ?The job is a good fit for me because of XYZ, and my past experience in XYZ.?

Continue your job search

While waiting to hear from the company after the job interview, you should not ignore other interview calls because you are waiting to hear back from the current interview. Even if you are convinced that you have got the job, there can be many slips between the cup and the lip. It is also a good idea to critique your previous performance and use the experience to polish your interviewing skills.

Real estate courses: EduMark announces dates for admission

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:08:00 +0000

Real estate education institute 'EduMark' has announced dates for the next batch of its various real estate courses. These courses include certificate in real estate management, diploma in property sales & transaction and planning & starting property Consulting Business. While, these courses will start from 15^th June, 2011, last date for admission is 05^th June, 2011.

EduMark realty education services offers these courses in association with national institute of real estate management (NIREM), which is the leader and pioneer of real estate education in India. Admission has already been started and is offered on first-come-first-served basis.

Certificate in real estate management is targeted at both existing real estate professionals and professionals from allied sectors as well as those who want to understand the various aspects of real estate market. Course covers legal aspects of real estate, property marketing, valuation, property transaction & sales process etc. among others. This is a part time one-month course.

On the other hand, diploma in property sales & transaction is aimed at candidates who are looking for real estate jobs. In other words, if you want to start your career in real estate then this three-month part time course is for you. Like previous batches, all the successful candidates of this course/batch will be placed with leading real estate companies.

Planning & starting property consulting business is a two-month course for those who want to start their own property consulting business. This highly focused course covers topics such as legal aspects of real estate, property sales & transaction process, valuation, customer handling, dealing with property developers, sales & promotion, sales channel development etc. in addition to topics such as formation of company, tax issues, hiring employees, office management etc.

Understanding Residential Property Investment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:42:00 +0000

20. May, 2011 by Mohammed Aslam

The fundamental aims of any residential property investment should be to maximise yield as well as capital gains and to reduce the risk as far as possible. To illustrate, renovating and embellishing a property makes it eligible for a higher rent, which means maximised yield. Property investment aimed at capital gains involves buying real estate cheap and selling it at a higher rate, thereby maximising one’s ROI. An astute investor will also buy a well-located property at a high price if the rental market is booming, since this makes it possible to rent it out for as long as it takes price to rise again.

The risk factor in residential real estate investment lies in the possibility of buying at a higher price and having to sell at a lower one in a depressed market. It is also risky to try time the market to discern the ‘best’ time to invest. Much like in the stock market, it is impossible to predict the point of lowest ebb in the real estate market. The danger in delaying investment too long is two-fold – firstly, one may lose out on the best properties, and secondly, the market may pick up ahead of one’s predictions, meaning that the lower rates may no longer be available.

Professional residential property investors with an eye on capital appreciation look for bargains on the property market. It is possible to find such bargains even in a boom period, since there are always property owners who need to sell their holdings quickly for financial or other reasons. To know whether or not one is picking up a bargain requires some basic insight into the current state and inherent nature of the property cycle. This cycle takes approximately seven years for one complete revolution.

Having a good knowledge of the local residential property market – meaning the market in the area one wishes to invest in – is also important, as is sufficient insight into the national and global markets. This is because the trends that drive the global market influence the national market, which in turn has a significant bearing on the local market.

In the current scenario, the Indian residential property market is sluggish because property prices have gone through the roof in cities like Mumbai, while there has been an increasingly slower-selling build-up of residential property developers’ inventories in Delhi NCR, Pune and other cities. Another reason is the recent hike in lending rates. This has made it harder for intending home buyers to acquire property, thereby giving a fillip to the rental market. Purchases on the residential property market pick up when lending rates or property prices reduce, because people would rather put their money into self-owned property rather than spend on rent.

For individual investors, real estate is always a good long-term risk diversifier that has the potential to generate very satisfactory risk-adjusted returns. Real estate has a low volatility quotient, and also low correlations with stock markets and debt. Investors with a long-term view should continue to include property in their investment portfolios.

In Short:

Establish your investment goals and strategy
Keep your focus on maximizing yield and capital gains
Reduce risk as far as possible
Do not attempt to time the market too accurately
Know the local market and also keep abreast of developments on the national and international markets
Invest for the long term

Mohammed Aslam, COO – Residential Services, Jones Lang LaSalle India

Realty Estate Sector Witnessing Labour Shortage

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Real estate firms are feeling the pinch of skilled and unskilled labour shortage as infrastructure growth picks up and workers get tapped by retail and other service-oriented industries. Cost of acquiring and retaining talent is going up too. “Delays are high in finishing stage. Shortages of carpenters, painters and electricians are even more severe than masons. It is inevitable that there will be delays in project completion unless the shortfall in these skills is overcome,” said Aroon Raman, vice-chairman of CII-Karnataka & MD of Raman Fibre. Mr Raman says the infrastructure industry right now employs 30 million workers of which 50% are in real estate. In Bangalore alone, the shortfall in people with slightly more advanced skills in the real estate segment including infrastructure creation and minor repair and maintenance projects — both residential and commercial — is expected to be of the order of 50,000 workers.

A World Bank study also says that India is staring at a labour crisis in the construction sector. The supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers will barely keep up with the pace of growth and will fall short by 18-28% under medium growth scenario. However, under a high-growth scenario, the shortage will be to the tune of 55-64% over the next eight years. To boot, contractors are finding it difficult to hire even migrant labourers for projects. “There is problem sourcing people, as these workers are migratory. It has become difficult to retain people too,” said Solomon JP, CEO, LabourNet, a firm that aims at improving earning opportunities of workers in the unorganised sector. And shortage of labourers has hit the construction industry at a time when real estate business is on a rebound. Mr Solomon says the shortage is forcing contractors to pull out workers from one site and park them in another. LabourNet has 20,000 blue-collar workers, majority of whom are employed in the real estate sector. Most of the skilled and unskilled labourers come from Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar and North Karnataka.

“Demand surge has consistently outstripped supply. Companies are taking certified people on contract. It is difficult to find skilled workers,” said Rajesh AR, vice-president of Bangalore-based staffing firm, TeamLease Services. To retain talent, builders are loosening their purse strings, upgrading technology, offering joining and retention bonuses, salary payments in advance, bringing labourers from rural areas and providing them accommodation and crèche facilities in the city. The wages have increased by 20% year-on-year. For example, Chartered Housing has taken a small number of electricians, carpenters and plumbers on its payroll and has also set up a team of in-house project management consultants to mitigate these problems, said Balakrishna Hegde, MD, Chartered Housing. The firm has six projects under execution. “Labour will become biggest constraint going ahead. Adopting new technology is the only way to eliminate labour shortage,” said Ravi Ramu, director, Puravankara Projects. The firm has adopted technology where it can complete a single floor in six days and reduce manpower requirements.

Sobha Developers too has set up a skill training institute for blue-collar workers. “Significant spurt in the construction activity is leading to shortage of workers. We train people who are PUC-qualified in our academy for a month and onsite for two months. And we retain most of our workers by offering regular increments,” said JC Sharma, MD, Sobha Developers. The firm, currently, has 11,000 workers onsite and will require an additional 6,500 with new projects coming up.

Nitesh Estate has tied up with multiple contractors to tide over labour shortage. “Shortage of construction workers is an inherent predicament in our industry. It is difficult to hold workers as they are migratory in nature and shuttle between jobs, said a spokesperson. Staffing firms Adecco and TeamLease have also moved in to ameliorate the crisis. “Companies are looking at migrant labour from industrially backward states to fight the shortage,” said Sudhakar Balakrishnan, managing director, Adecco India. Adecco and TeamLease currently have 7,000 and 8,000 blue-collar temps, respectively, on their payrolls across different industries.

India Inc faces talent shortage: Manpower

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:42:00 +0000

NEW DELHI: Talent shortage is again becoming a worrying factor for Indian employers, said a survey conducted by HR consulting firm Manpower.

According to the survey, 67% of employers in India are struggling to fill jobs, second only to Japan, where 80% employers reported struggling to fill positions. The India figure is almost double of the global average, which stood at 34%.

The survey further revealed that Indian employers are experiencing difficulty filling critical positions within their organisations, which includes positions in research & development, sales managerial positions and IT staff, compared to last year's jobs of skilled trades, cleaners & domestic staff and accounting & finance staff. In fact, one in three employers world-wide is struggling to fill key vacancies.

"While not all employers are feeling the pain associated with the global talent shortage, external forces mean it is likely that they will soon feel pressure," said Manpower Group India MD Sanjay Pandit. "Businesses need to adopt a long-term approach to ensure they have the talent they need to achieve their objectives."

Education Biz: Are PE Players Ready To Add Tangible Value?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 May 2011 19:50:00 +0000

BY SOUMITRA CHATTERJEE, VCC

The education sector has huge potentials for PE funding, but one must follow the rules of value-addition to stay ahead.

There is little doubt that the Indian education sector offers significant long-term opportunity, illustrated by the widely quoted statistics that Indian consumers spend $40 billion (3 per cent of the GDP) on private educational services and institutions. Then, there is the widespread venture capital and entrepreneurial involvement in the sector. The world’s largest education company Pearson has recently spent $140m for a 76 per cent stake in TutorVista. Also, data from VCCedge, the financial research platform from VCCircle, suggests that from CY08 to CY11YTD, there have been 51 PE investments in the Indian education sector with an investment of $417 million and 9 exits fetching $114 million to the PE players.

What Ails Education Space?

But in spite of such potentials, there are certain issues that ail the Indian education system. The first phase witnessed the dominance of ICT@schools and multimedia content in private schools. Indeed, for a company like Everonn, ICT@schools was the key revenue generator till FY09. However, this space suffers from high upfront capex and debtor days, and has remained FCF negative for companies (at best FCF neutral in some quarters).

When it comes to multimedia content in private schools, the introduction of digital content for those institutions has been a revolutionary step by Educomp and it has definitely enjoyed the first-mover advantage till CY09. However, this model is now faced with several challenges including commoditisation of content, as it is easily replicable, and price wars resulting from this commoditisation, as new and smaller players have come in with new pricing models. On top of that, there is high capital intensity, an area where PE players do not venture often.

Who Can Serve Best

We must look for these five aspects in an education company – the business has to be asset-light; there should be strong competitive advantages and high entry barriers; the business model should be scalable; there should be very little regulatory hassles and there should be tangible benefits to students (in my opinion, this is perhaps the most important aspect as students are the clients of an education services company).

Businesses that fit into any of these criteria include education allied services companies like pre-school companies, test prep and tutoring companies; institutions providing vocational training; companies managing brick-and-mortar K-12 schools and the higher education segment.

Tangible Benefits Take You Ahead

For education allied services companies, the opportunity is huge, since the market share for a small segment like the pre-school currently stands at $1 billion. Similarly, for the test prep segment, the market size is close to $1.5 billion while the tutoring market is expected to be around $5 billion, thus showcasing huge opportunities for the players. Although the business model is asset-light and there are no regulatory hassles, the companies suffer from lack of competitive advantages and scalability challenges. While pre-school suffers from competition from mom-and-pop shops, test prep and tutoring business is a highly fragmented market with a strong local preference. The vocational training segment is still in a nascent stage and is mostly dominated by low-price point courses like English vocabulary, personality development and a few other which are highly fragmented and suffer from stiff competition.

I have also mentioned above that I look for tangible benefits to students as one of the key criteria for the business to do well in the long term. In a pre-school segment, this tangible benefit means tie-ups with quality K-12 schools. As a result, parents won’t feel hassled to find a good school for their kids when the young ones are out of playschool. In the test prep and tutoring segment, the tangible benefit is the presence of good teachers in that region, as students generally opt for coaching classes based on faculty quality. Similarly, in the vocational training segment, tangible benefit amounts to job guarantee, which can excite students to enrol for high-value course.

While I don’t rule out that most of these companies tend to do well in the initial part of their journey, over a longer term period, overall shareholder value creation will depend on the presence of tangible benefits which can help them tide the competitive landscape.

Building Value In The K-12 Segment

Companies managing K-12 schools and collaborating with well-known brands mostly dominate the education space. In fact, one of the best options to lead the education sector is to own and/or manage K-12 schools. With a significant shortage in quality schools, firms that own, lease or manage schools can benefit directly from defensive recurring fee revenues. As owning land and building leased to schools is often highly capital-intensive, PE firms generally do not invest in companies which plan to raise money and put it in real estate.

As schools need to be run as ‘not-for-profit,’ firms typically monetise schools by leasing infrastructure and land to an independent trust and charging management fees. This is an attractive business as indicated by the relatively high IRRs (28-32 per cent) in setting up schools. Education companies can practically avoid the real estate part of the school and explore the K-12 schools opportunity by partnering with land-owners or real estate developers to manage schools. In this case, the education company doesn’t make capital investments and earns profits based on the profits generated by the school after paying for the cost of the lease and a per cent of profits to the landlord. Moreover, profit margins are significantly higher in such businesses than owning schools. Given that most firms are looking to set up schools, companies such as Educomp, Career Launcher and Everonn have roots as suppliers to schools. Their strength lies in running the schools better rather than managing real estate.

Another thing that I value is the association with well-known brands. While new schools do resort to advertising, long-term patronage is built by word of mouth as parents choose schools based on the trust in the brand name. Setting up and managing K-12 schools is not easy and schools typically need 6-8 years to reach peak capacity from scratch. But this is a long tenure even for long-term investors. As such, we prefer companies who manage schools having a strong brand name, as a school typically starts as K-5, since it is difficult to attract high school students without a good track record. Indeed, Sequoia Capital and Song Advisors invested $15 million in K-12 Techno Services (Gowtham brand of School), which was already running more than 50 schools at the time of first-round investment. Educomp also partnered with Padma Sheshadri Bal Bhavan (PSBB) brand of schools and this helped add more than 7,000 students to its total tally of about 26,000 students.

Educomp owns real estate of around 30 of the 50 K-12 schools that it runs. It did a QIP of Rs 6 billion in FY10 and 57 per cent of that went into buying land and another 25 per cent is expected to go in construction of the building, making the business very asset-heavy. The private equity participation in this case is expected to come in a very late stage when these schools will be operating at 75-80 per cent capacity and listing of Educomp School Management (a subsidiary) after two to three years of PE investment will provide an easy exit for investors.

Higher Education May Ensure High Profits

Another segment that has immense potential is the higher education segment. Of course, there are no listed players in this segment due to regulatory issues. But the below-average performance of the state and the central government in this segment makes me quite optimistic that this segment will open up soon in a much bigger way for private players. Indeed, three of the large four PE deals in the education sector has been in the higher education segment which includes investments by PremjiInvest Fund in Manipal Universal Learning Pvt Ltd and investments by Navis Asia Fund in ITM Trust.

While for PE players and angel investors varied options are available in this sector, depending on what suits their requirements, for retail investors, there are a few ways to play the education theme – notably done by Educomp, NIIT and Everonn. In the early years of their listing, this scarcity benefited the public companies. In the first three years of its listing, Everonn traded at an average P/E of 40x while Educomp has traded at >60x, driven by the hype around exponential growth expectations. The shares of all the listed companies have since underperformed, as inflated expectations were not met with. The sector’s time will come though, as more and better companies come out with IPO, hopefully with scalable businesses having strong competitive advantages.

(Soumitra Chatterjee is a Technology analyst with Execution Noble).

Venture Financing and Entrepreneurial Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:21:00 +0000

by William Kerr

Does high-quality venture financing increase the success of funded ventures? My co-authors, Josh Lerner of HBS and Antoinette Schoar of MIT, and I define venture finance here to include professional investors in high-growth ventures like venture capitalists and angel investment groups. Other forms of entrepreneurial finance include credit cards, banks, friends and family, personal savings, and so on.

At first glance, this seems obvious — of course. A large fraction of companies that go public receive venture funding early in their life cycle. Moreover, within the venture capital industry, the odds of success improve with the quality of the investor. So, it would seem to follow that obtaining the backing of a top-tier financier is an important stepping stone for high-growth entrepreneurs.

Many entrepreneurs, however, would beg to disagree. Venture funding comes with a high price tag, and many start-ups want to avoid it or at least delay as long as possible. While Google, Facebook and Genentech took on venture funding early in their lifecycles, Dell, Microsoft and Honest Tea made amazing progress through bootstrapping and early non-professional investors.

A Tricky Problem

Evaluating the importance of venture investors for start-up success is a tricky problem. Most importantly, there is a great deal of assortative matching in these markets — that is, great business plans get paired with great investors, and not-so-great with not-so-great. How successful would these high-potential start-ups be absent these investors? At the very least, we should not attribute all of venture's success to the investors.

We study start-up companies that approached prominent angel investment groups to identify the extent to which backing by prominent investors is important for venture success. Angel investors are a central source of start-up funding, greater in deal counts and dollar volumes than venture capital. These investors are increasingly organizing into groups to make their investments. Banding together offers many gains: better deal flow, larger investment size potential, shared due diligence, and similar.

These groups also offer a rare research laboratory for evaluating the impact of high-growth, professional investors. Entrepreneurs make investment presentations to the full angel group. Each angel records his or her interest in the venture individually. The polling and record keeping involved in this process provide a wealth of information on the investment decision process — and its impact on the venture's success.

The Duds, the Homeruns, and the Ones We Study

Most potential deals receive no interest (the duds). A select few receive massive interest (the homeruns). These two groups are of limited use because the funding decisions and subsequent investment outcomes are so closely linked to observable venture quality.

In between these extremes, however, are a group of investment opportunities that carry tremendous information. The funding choices of angel groups display discontinuities or breaking points, where a small change in the collective interest levels of the angels can lead to a discrete jump in the probability of funding for otherwise comparable ventures.

As an example, 90% of the 2000+ ventures that approached Tech Coast Angels (TCA) between 2000-2006 garnered the interest of fewer than 10 angels. The probability of receiving funding in this group was basically zero. On the other hand, 2% of ventures received interest from more than 35 angels, with a maximum of 191 angels expressing interest. The funding probability is in this group was over 40%.

In between these extremes, the funding probability consistently grows, but it is non-linear. TCA was twice as likely to fund a venture if 20-24 angels are interested (38% probability) compared to if 15-19 angels are interested (17% probability). This breaking point is not due to a specific investment rule imposed by investors. Instead, it is an outcome of the their decision-making processes and the collection of sufficient interest around a deal.

Critically, however, one cannot find any statistical difference between the start-ups in the 15-19 group and those in the 20-24 groups in terms of venture sector, amount of funding sought, number of employees, and so on. Thus, the start-up companies in the 15-19 and 20-24 groups are initially comparable in quality but, due to idiosyncratic factors, have very different funding probabilities.

What Happens Next?

What happens to these two groups next says a lot about whether venture financing helps high-growth start-ups succeed or not. Comparing the groups just above the funding border with those just below, we find venture financing increases the probability of venture survival. It also increases venture performance and growth as measured through growth in web site traffic and web site rankings. The improvement gains typically range between 30% and 50%.

Interestingly, we do not find consistent evidence for venture financing leading to better access to follow-on financing by other investor groups, which is often cited as a benefit. Access to capital per se may not be the most important value-added that angel investment groups bring. Some of the "softer" features, such as angels' mentoring or business contacts, may help new ventures the most.

The Fine Print

Two caveats are important to note. First, angel investment groups are very heterogeneous, and our data come from groups that are professionally managed. These performance gains thus may not extend to everyone. More importantly, we are unable to consider the costs to entrepreneurs in terms of equity granted. The deal terms can't be too onerous or taking the money won't be worth it for the entrepreneurs no matter how successful the venture ultimately is.

William Kerr is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches the Entrepreneurial Manager course in the first year of the MBA program.

Top 10 sectors: 4.3 crores jobs in the coming years!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:54:00 +0000

From retail to pharma, commercial agriculture and healthcare, here's what you need to study good career.

http://in.education.yahoo.com

by Careers360

THE conflict between animals and humans has increased of late. Mahi Puri, an MSc, Environmental Sciences student gives us an example. “Elephants seasonally migrate from Orissa to Jharkhand via Chattisgarh. But due to mining activities in Chattisgarh forests, the pachyderms directly come in contact with workers and their villages leading to fatal clashes," she explains.

The 25-year-old TERI University student, who volunteered with wildlife organisations for five years, makes her point. It takes a new breed of professionals to handle such conflicts and ensure that development happens without too much ecological devastation. Welcome to the world of Developmental Officer or Environmental Manager, a career that never existed ten years ago.

For the second consecutive year, we attempted to identify those sectors and careers that provide the maximum number of exciting opportunities in the coming year. What are the skill sets needed to enter these sectors? Where are the jobs? The results came as a revelation.

While Banking, Pharma, Retail, IT and Education remain the top sectors where most of the action happens, a whole new range of sectors have emerged out of the blue. The new job guzzlers are – Ethical Tourism, Design Services, Shared IT Services, Real Estate and Food Processing.

The nature of jobs has also undergone a sea change. New careers like Chief Happiness Officer, Design Analyst, Risk Evaluator, and Sustainability Expert have come into being. Each of these jobs demand skill sets which are complex and cut across disciplines. So in addition to above average understanding of the domain, ability to learn quickly, draw lessons from diverse experiences and events and apply them to situations which are totally different are some of the new skill demands placed on the executive of today.

Where are maximum job opportunities?

Every sector is likely to grow where the technology involved has undergone a basic shift, or a new model of servicing them came into being, says E. Balaji MaFoi Randstad’s MD & CEO. For example, in Banking, still nearly 81 percent of the population has no access to formal banking channels. And since their saving potential is erratic, the serving model has to be cost effective.

The micro-credit revolution that swept the market recently is an example, which in its wake brought in more than 3 lakh opportunities for young graduates as lending and credit officers.

Balaji’s view is shared by other experts also. The notable aspect, however, is post-recession, almost all sectors have recorded growth (barring a few, like Real Estate) and a few made impressive gains.

According to experts some sectors hold a definitive sway in the coming 3-4 years like Banking and allied verticals, Telecom and some, like the green sector, will deliver the best in the coming 5-year horizon. Defensive sectors like Pharma will clock a steady growth.

Want to start a property brokerage firm?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:54:00 +0000

If you want to start your own property consulting business but don’t know what to do next, then this article is for you.

You have very closely seen the growth of real estate and property business in India. Infact, you have seen people raking money in property brokerage business. Now, you want to start your own property consulting firm but are not sure of the processes required. Infact, you know everything about this business but when it comes to actually starting it, you don’t what to do and where to start from. You have several ideas in mind and get as much advice as many experts are there. Still you are not clear of steps that you should take-Probably you need somebody who can guide you step-by-step by telling you what you do the next.

On the other hand, though there are advisors and management consultants who advice individuals and organisations about starting a business but their service charges are usually much higher than your total budget for this business. It is due to this need and to promote real estate entrepreneurship in India, EduMark Education Services started a program ‘Planning and Starting a Property Consulting Business’.

Through this program, EduMark provides you with step-by-step guidance to plan and start your own property related business. Infact, EduMark offers you more than the guidance-It offers you a network of mentors who are experienced real estate entrepreneurs and professionals who will enrich you with their knowledge and experience. In addition EduMark offers you a platform for each and every query, enquiry and needs of yours.

Key features of this program:

In this highly structured program, EduMark (http://www.edumarkindia.in) offers you knowledge and resource in three categories, as follows:

Subject Knowledge: Property Law, Brokerage & Marketing

First, the subject knowledge in which you get knowledge about legal aspects of property, property brokerage and property marketing e.g. various forms of property ownership, acquisition and transfer of title, free hold and lease hold interests, title search, contracts, property transaction process, property listing and brokerage, marketing of properties etc. However, EduMark’s objective is that once you are trained from EduMark you should be able to provide all related services to your clients under one roof and that you should not loose any clients because of lack of knowledge. Therefore, EduMark also teaches you about other but related areas such as home loans, tax advantages of home ownership, transactions related to NRIs and PIOs, title insurance, property management etc.

Formation of Company and Government Approvals:

Second, EduMark guides you about the process and relative merits and demerits of various types of companies such as proprietorship, partnership and private limited companies. You get complete knowledge about availability & registration of names as well as registration of companies. EduMark further helps you in registering with various Government authorities such as service tax, income tax etc. among others.

Starting property broking activities:

You have now knowledge of the property market and have established company. Now you want to start the actual activities. Therefore, EduMark now helps you associate with and get agency of leading property developers. It helps you join network of leading consultants. Mentors at EduMark helps you plan your marketing and promotion activities and use technology in actually promoting reaching upto your clients-the home buyers. Mentors further help you recruit and train suitable employees for your organisation. EduMark and its mentors further help you network with different players in the market.

Overall, EduMark’s ‘Planning and Starting a Property Consulting Business’ is a program that offers hand holding service to those who want to start their own property consulting business. To know more about this course, please visit www.edumarkindia.in or mail to :edumarkvet@gmail.com

South Korean Coaching Giant Etoos Enters Indian Market

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:10:00 +0000

Source: VCC

Backed by the SK Group, Etoos focuses on two businesses, the e-learning website and its offline coaching centres.

Etoos Academy, a South Korean coaching conglomerate, is all set to enter the Indian market and is currently setting up in Kota (Rajasthan) its first-ever institute for IIT JEE coaching. The institute will become functional by May this year.

Backed by the SK Group, one of the industrial conglomerates in South Korea, Etoos focuses on two major businesses, the e-learning website and its offline coaching centres. The institute provides coaching for Korean Scholastic Aptitude Test (KSAT) – the common entrance exam for professional colleges – much like the Indian entrance exams like IIT JEE, AIPMT and CAT.

“We understand the need of Indian students who struggle with traditional coaching systems. Hence, we thought of making it a liberating yet fun-filled education system for them. At Etoos Academy, we provide faculty-based, topic-based, level-based and time-based class options and ensure value for money,” said Sung Jin Kang, director (India), Etoos Academy. The organisation will set up its India headquarters in Gurgaon, Haryana.

There are quite a few players like Career Launcher, Mahesh Tutorials, FIITJEE, IMS and TIME in the country, which are growing fast in the entrance coaching segment. Also, the education sector in India has witnessed an increasing interest from PE players, with investments of $190 million across 23 deals in 2010, compared to the 10 deals worth $128 million in 2009, states a report by VCCEdge.

In 2009, FIITJEE, a leader in IIT entrance coaching, raised Rs 100 crore from Matrix Partners, a Mumbai-based venture capital firm. Matrix owns about 10 per cent in the company. Other test preparation companies who have raised private equity include Career Launcher (from Intel Capital in first round and under $10 million from Gaja Capital Partners in series B) and Mahesh Tutorials (about $12 million from Helix Investments).

According to a recent Ernst & Young report on education, Indian higher education system has established itself as one of the largest in the world, in terms of number of institutions and student enrolment. Higher education spends in India are currently estimated at Rs 46,200 crore and are projected to grow to nearly Rs 1,50,000 crore in the next 10 years.