Real estate demand is picking up and we were recently reading about Oberoi Realty While doing so, we came across some interesting stories about Vikas Oberoi, the man behind the company A small thread 🧵 (1/n)
Kindness can reward in different ways In 2001, a real estate broker visited the offices of Mr Vikas without any appointment. Mr. Vikas was not pleased but still decided to meet him to respect the man’s effort (2/n)
This small gesture led to a massive opportunity that changed the course of the company. The broker had come with the information of sale of a land in Goregaon. The two immediately drove off to the site and the moment Vikas saw it he knew it was a gold mine (3/n)
Honesty does pay off Since the bidding for that land had been closed it wasn’t easy for Vikas to put in his offer with Novartis. While discussing the deal with the MD of Novartis, all other companies were negotiating on the problems they identified with the land (4/n)
However, Vikas was the only one who was completely honest and talked about how the land was a gold mine and what he would build on it if the deal came through. The MD was clearly impressed and the deal went through (5/n)
Nothing would excite Vikas more than to think about the development he would do on a piece of land. If another builder would build 10 buildings 8 stories each in any particular place, Vikas would build 4 buildings of 30-40 stories and completely change the landscape (6/n)
He believed it to be his duty to contribute to the city’s skyline. When he acquired the land from Novartis, instead of building a residential project he first built a mall and a school (7/n)
Learning from mistakes Even though Vikas is given all credit for the speed at which Oberoi has grown, Vikas credits his father If his father had not let him make all the mistakes he did at an early age he would not have been able to build Oberoi Realty the way he has (8/n)
Once Vikas and his father went to buy a piece of land and there were 3 pieces on offer. Vikas wanted to buy all three while his father thought it was only okay to buy 1. Vikas was young at that time and when they were on their way back home Vikas started crying (9/n)
His father had no choice but to take a U turn and buy all three. The project didn’t turn out well and it took them months to get the land cleared from authorities. Vikas said that it was events like these that helped him become the entrepreneur that he is (10/n)
Work with the best This is something we found in common with Abhishek Khaitan from ‘Radico Khaitan’. Vikas was particular about making sure the clients got their properties on time and in perfect condition (11/n)
To ensure this he always hired the best construction teams even though they were much more expensive and would bring down the margins. His idea was that goodwill was way more valuable than a slightly higher margin percentage (12/n)
Respect your customers For Vikas, customers always came first. It is said that once a customer insisted that he receive his flat keys from Vikas himself, so the entrepreneur made himself available. (13/n)
At that time it was common for developers to walk around with security. Vikas was different, he would insist on meeting any unhappy customer and make sure personally that their problems were solved (14/n)
Be careful with debt Vikas was always averse to debt. He often used to quote from his passion of flying planes that ‘A good pilot is a safe pilot, if you fly you have to land every time’ (15/n)
He proudly shares that Oberoi Realty has never had a single ghost project. He says that when a client buys a house, he writes the biggest cheque of his life and he believes it to be his responsibility that the trust that the client is putting in him is not broken ever (16/n)
