What the Act says about advertising
These are the sections that touch your marketing. We give the Act's meaning in plain words, with the section number so your lawyer can check.
- Section 2(b): an advertisement is any document or publicity, in any medium, about a project. It includes offers for sale and invitations to buy or to pay an advance. Hoardings, videos, WhatsApp creatives, brochures and social posts all count.
- Section 3(1): without registration, no promoter may advertise, market, book, sell or offer for sale. Nor may they invite people to buy in any manner.
- Section 11(2): the advertisement or prospectus must mention prominently the Authority's website address, where the project's details are entered, and the registration number.
- Section 12: if someone pays an advance because of an incorrect or false statement in an advertisement or a model flat, the promoter must compensate them. If they want to withdraw, the promoter returns the whole amount with interest.
- Section 7: the Authority may revoke a registration for unfair practices. The Act lists false claims about standard and advertisements for services not meant to be offered.
- Section 13(1): a promoter may not take more than ten per cent of the cost as an advance without a registered written agreement for sale.
- Sections 59 and 61: the penalty for selling without registration can reach ten per cent of the estimated project cost. For other breaches it can reach five per cent.
Our glossary entry on RERA advertising gives the short version.
Agents and channel partners
Section 9 requires a real estate agent to be registered. The agent quotes the registration number in every sale they handle. Section 10 bars an agent from selling in an unregistered project. Ask every channel partner for their number before you share your creatives.
State rules add detail
RERA is a central Act, but each State has its own rules and authority. Maharashtra's authority, for example, issued Order 46/2023 on 29 May 2023. It asks promoters to show a QR code beside the registration number on every advertisement published after 1 August 2023. In an order of 27 March 2025, it penalised a promoter whose website advertisement had no QR code. The case began after a letter from ASCI, the advertising self-regulation body.
A later order, No. 46C of 8 April 2025, covers QR code and font size norms. We could not read its text, because the file is a scan. Read it on the MahaRERA site if your project is in Maharashtra. If it is elsewhere, open your own State authority's site and look for orders on advertising.
Phase 1: Before registration, prepare and stay quiet
The Act says no advertising or marketing before registration. So this phase is private work. Ask your lawyer where the line falls for your project.
- Complete the registration file and the approvals.
- Fix the project facts: name, location, plan, number of units, carpet areas, approvals and the date you will promise for completion.
- Build the project website, brochure, videos and ad creatives. Keep them unpublished.
- Set up a lead form, a tracking sheet and a phone script. Test them inside the team.
- Train the sales team and any channel partners on what they may and may not say.
- Plan the launch date from the registration date, not the other way round.
Do not run teasers, countdowns, expression-of-interest forms or booking offers for the project. Do not take any money. Do not let a channel partner do any of this for you.
Phase 2: Launch, after the registration number arrives
Once the project is registered, you can advertise. Put the same facts in every place.
The launch checklist
- The registration number and the Authority's website address on every advertisement, in a size a reader can see. Add your State's extra items, such as a QR code.
- The same project name, address and registration number on the website, brochure, hoarding, social posts and WhatsApp creatives.
- A completion date that matches the date you registered and the date in your agreement for sale.
- Carpet area and price stated the way your agreement states them.
- Pictures marked as artist's impression where they are not the real building.
- Any condition or note in the same language and the same font as the claim. The consumer authority's 2022 guidelines say a disclaimer must not hide material information or fix a misleading claim.
- No promise of returns, rental income or price rise. Say what is true today: location, plan, approvals and dates.
Channels, and the job of each
- Project website. It carries the registration details, plans and a booking form for a site visit. See our website design for real estate page.
- Search and social ads that bring local buyers. See our digital marketing for real estate, real estate search engine optimisation (SEO) and social media for real estate pages.
- Google Business Profile for the site office, so people can find and reach it.
- Channel partners and brokers. Brief them, and see how we work with real estate agents.
- 3D walkthroughs for buyers who cannot visit yet. See 3D walkthroughs.
- WhatsApp follow-up, only after the buyer opts in. The WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy, last updated on 23 September 2026, says a business may contact people only if they gave their number and opt-in permission. See our WhatsApp marketing page.
- Hoardings, print and events for local reach. Each carries the registration number too.
For a plan that ties lead generation to site visits, read our lead generation for real estate page.
The site visit funnel
- Enquiry. A person fills the form or calls. Log the source.
- Qualify. A short call to learn the budget, timing, need and who else decides. Be honest about what you can offer.
- Book the visit. Fix a date and a time, and send directions and a reminder.
- Visit. Show the site office and, where it exists, the model flat or a 3D walkthrough. Share the sanctioned plans and the registered details.
- Follow up within a day. Answer the doubts you heard.
- Booking. Remember section 13: more than ten per cent needs a registered written agreement for sale.
- Agreement and payment plan. Your lawyer's papers lead here, not the ad.
Most drop-outs happen between the enquiry and the visit. A call within minutes, a clear reminder and an easy route to the site help more than a bigger ad budget.
Phase 3: Construction updates
Section 11(1) of the Act asks you to keep your page on the Authority's website up to date every quarter. It covers units and garages booked, approvals taken and pending, and the project status.
- Send buyers a dated progress update with real photos on a regular day each month.
- Match your marketing posts to what your Authority page says. A picture that runs ahead of the site will cost trust.
- Tell buyers early if a date may slip. Section 18 sets out what a delay means for a buyer: a refund with interest if they withdraw, or monthly interest if they stay.
- Do not change plans or specifications that buyers have seen without their consent. Section 14(2) bars it, except for minor changes.
The same promise, said the same way, again and again, is what makes a project feel safe.
Phase 4: Handover and after
- Hand over with the completion or occupancy certificate. Section 11(4) makes you responsible for obtaining it.
- Help the buyers form an association, as section 11(4)(e) requires.
- Fix defects. Section 14(3) says defects reported within five years of possession are to be fixed within thirty days at no charge.
- Ask happy owners for a review or a referral, in writing and with their consent.
- Use the handover story as your proof for the next phase. Each new phase needs its own registration before you advertise it.
How to measure a launch
Cost per lead is easy to count and easy to be fooled by. Track the whole chain, from cost per lead to cost per booking.
- Cost per qualified enquiry: ad spend divided by enquiries that passed your first call.
- Cost per site visit: spend divided by visits that happened.
- Cost per booking: spend divided by bookings.
- Share of enquiries replied to within an hour.
- Visit-to-booking rate by source, so you can move money to the sources that bring buyers.
Say a developer spends ₹3,00,000 on ads in a month and gets 600 enquiries. Of these, 150 are qualified, 60 come for a visit and 3 book. Cost per qualified enquiry is ₹2,000, per visit ₹5,000, and per booking ₹1,00,000. A cheaper source with fewer visits may be worse than a dearer one that brings visits. The numbers are made up. Use your own.
Give each page and each ad its own phone number or form tag, so a booking can be traced to a source. Count people in your own lead record, not clicks.
Mistakes we see
- Posting a teaser or a hoarding before the registration number is issued.
- A registration number that is missing from social posts, videos or WhatsApp creatives.
- Completion dates that differ between the ad, the brochure and the agreement.
- Promising rental income or price rise to close a booking.
- Channel partners who run their own ads with wrong details.
- Slow follow-up to enquiries, and no tracking from the ad to the booking.
When to ask for help
Ask for help when you plan a first launch, when you run several projects at once, or when site visits do not turn into bookings. We plan the phases, the pages, the ads and the tracking together. Start with our real estate marketing page.
