A few number of visitors seen in the concluding day of REHAB Fair Friday.
The four-day REHAB Summer Fair- 2015 ended on Friday with poor sales due to multifarious reasons including heavy rainfall, participants said.
Inadequate publicity and wrong fixation of fair dates were also blamed for the poor transactions.
The number of visitors on Friday-the weekly holiday, was also less than the expectation, they added.
According to the organisers, many of the 150 participants could not even manage a single sale during the whole fair period.
Fare Builders Ltd, a participant that has displayed eighty projects targeting sales of 250 flats in the fair secured booking of only 13 flats.
"We have sold 91 flats in last year's winter fair even despite political turmoil but our achievement in this fair is frustrating," Assistant Sales Manager of the company, Md Swapon Mia told the FE.
"Stable political situation and government's assistance also could not boost our sales mainly because of wrong fixation of fair dates," he added. "If the fair were arranged on Friday and Saturday then sales could have been increased."
"Heavy rainfall disappointed many of our fellow participants. Customers could not come to the fair," Asif Iqbal, Senior executive (sales) of Building Design and Development Ltd (BDDL), another leading company said.
However, many small and medium capital- based developers said they were expecting a boost in sales of comparatively smaller sized flats as the government in budget of fiscal year (FY) 2015-16 has declared cut in value added tax (VAT) for comparatively smaller sized flats.
"Many of our fellow businessmen who faced a serious setback due to poor sales in the last few years were expecting to regain after budget," Aminur Rahman, Director of Krishibid Group said.
"Besides, people are yet to know about the reduction of VAT on smaller sized flats. That is also another reason for poor turnout of customers. Otherwise there are good demands for medium and smaller sized flats among the urban middle income group of people".
"Allocation of loans at a single digit of interest can only boost the sales in the real-estate sector. Otherwise negative trend of sales might worsen the situation further," Mr Rahman opined.
However, participants of backward linkage industries of housing sector also witnessed poor sales.
Asstt. General manager of Haroon Engineering Limited, a leading air-conditioner company that has around 2.5 million clients across the country said their sales in the fair were less than 20 per cent of expectation due to poor turnout of customers.
Meanwhile, disagreeing with the claim of poor publicity, president of Real Estate & Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB), Alamgir Shamsul Alamin, said heavy rainfall and date fixation are the main reasons behind the poor sales turnover.
"We were expecting a big gathering of visitors on Saturday evening and Friday, but rainfall barred many prospective customers from coming out of their houses," he added.
"We have given a wide publicity of the fair that we do every year."
"We were forced to start the fair late due to Indian Prime Minister's visit and also had to finish early as there is another programme on Saturday. Visitors usually come on holidays. So, it is assumed that luck did not favour us," he added.
The REHAB president, however, said this is the right time to book flats as prices correction has been done in the meantime and better political situation and duty support by the government may further push prices of flats shortly.
Nearly 150 participants including 40 backward linkage companies and financiers took part the in the four-day long REHAB Summer Fair 2015.
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