Naming New Realty Projects After Famous Localities of Mumbai is Just Gimmickry

An amazing trend of naming new realty projects to sound like its more famous and original name is fast emerging in Mumbai’s real estate market. This is nothing but a play on words, and a ploy – to quote a famous cliché - ‘to lead the innocent buyer up the garden path’. The developer is assuming the skills of an illusionist and conjuring a make-believe world for hapless and naïve home buyers by dazzling them into looking forward to a similar status of their new dream home on par with the original real estate destination. So what do you have - the Lower Parel area of Mumbai being named ‘Upper Worli’ and Wadala being christened ‘New Cuffe Parade’and Oshiwara, an area situated between the western sides of Goregaon and Jogeshwari being called ‘Andheri’. This mind-boggling nomenclature is the new vocabulary of some developers today.

This may seem to be a clever use of psychology to play on the buyer’s aspirations and to equate a new area with the dream location. Buyers may be induced into believing that the project promises to imitate the glamour and status of the brand locality. Hussain Indorewala, assistant professor of Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi I for Architecture and Environmental Studies says, “A few builders apply such marketing strategies and bank on the social prestige of some places to lure more buyers. Some experts feel that this strategy is targeted at those who have, of late, run into wealth, who are the ‘nouveau riche’ in a flourishing, prosperous and aspirational new India. Mudassar Zaidi, national director-residential, of Knight Frank India says, “Such strategies are successful when they are followed by the right action plan. When people re-brand a certain area, they try and project that place by associating its name with a smarter, richer area that will eventually take on the character of that particular place.”

Real estate veterans of Mumbai recall that extending the names of stylish and up market areas, has existed in earlier times too. Bandra, in the western suburbs and Juhu are connected by a Linking Road but the places in between are not known by their original names but are also popularly called ‘Bandra’ Such instances of popular places being used for lesser known areas by virtue of road extensions, have always been there. It is only a recent phenomena that some enterprising developers have jumped on the band wagon of touting their new projects thus to create a hype. Shubhranshu Pani, managing director-infrastructure services, JLL India opines, “This strategy works because it creates an aspirational value for the people. This also lends an image of ‘perfection’ to a certain area.”

However, there are many experts who feel that this strategy is not well founded and is based on hollow claims and reeks of an attitude of intemperance. It runs the risk of reducing the project to a farce if the touted features of the original are not replicated in it. It also pre-judges the new area and robs it of its own respectability and individuality. It may be a place on its own having great value and importance. Chaitnya Pande, Principal and MD of Lionshead Alternatives has this to say, “In the short-term, such time-tested strategies help. However, over a period of time, a certain place will be known for its own intrinsic worth.”

The real test of the value of a place is not in its name but in its bouquet of facilities and opportunities it offers its investors and how it grows with time. The use of fancy names borrowed from reputed localities is not reflected in reality as the postal address of these houses retain the name of its original locality and never changes in any official records.

A new home buyer at Wadala had this to say, “Two years ago when my family and I moved to a new property in Wadala we heard a lot of our neighbours referring to the area as ‘New Cuffe Parade’. But we found it ludicrous. Any amount of rebranding or renaming would not be able to alter the nature of this area.”

It is for those builders to appreciate that their gimmickry is not cutting any ice with amojority of home buyers and should desist from making such tall claims.