A large share of global buyers (NRIs & HNIs) don’t wish to invest in the Indian property market. 78% of them have their own reasons to look towards overseas property market. The recent banking woes have further dented their confidence to invest in India. They also feel that the property prices in India are way too higher, compared to the overall value proposition on offer.
Indian real estate is still a viable and fairly safe long-term investment option. Investors with a short-term view on ‘instant returns’ need to look elsewhere, but most other asset classes are quite volatile in nature and will continue to remain so. Indian residential real estate is a long-time favourite of resident Indians and NRIs, and recent trends suggest a positive outlook for this asset class going forward. Property prices have bottomed out and cannot possibly reduce further, especially since construction costs are gradually heading north.
While there is no cap on the number of properties for which an NRI can take home loans for, repayment capacity must always be factored in. Over-leveraging is never a good idea and regardless of what viewpoint a bank takes, NRIs must do their own repayment capacity calculations.
According to a World Bank report, India received USD 79 billion in remittances in 2018 – with a sizeable portion going into real estate. NRI investments into Indian real estate are led Indian expatriates from UAE, USA, UK, and Canada. In terms of Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi-NCR currently attract the lion’s share of NRI investments.
The NRIs from the US, UK, Middle East, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Mauritius participated in the survey. They were given a mix of open-ended and close-ended questions to assess their investment choice in the Indian property market. The data was then collated by Track2Realty team to read the mood of the NRIs vis-à-vis their investment choice in the Indian property market.
There is no restriction on the number of properties that NRIs can own in India. However, NRIs obviously need to make informed decisions on such acquisitions. The most important consideration is that of whether the property purchase is for their own or their family’s actual use, or as an investment for rental income and potential capital appreciation.
Marine Drive is a picturesque promenade in Kochi that is facing the backwaters. It is one of the most popular hang out for the residents of the city as well as tourists due to the magnificent view of the backwaters and Kochi Harbor. The walkway is perfect to enjoy a relaxing stroll at any time of the day and hence a property on this stretch is high on the wish list.
It is more of bad news than good news for the developers as far as their efforts to entice the NRIs is concerned. The good news is that the outlook of the expat Indians towards the Indian real estate is changing; the recent policy reforms have made them more optimistic about the property market back home. But the bad news is that they are yet not ready to commit for property purchase in India.
The Indian real estate developers are going over-board in capturing the fantasy of the rich Indians who are also expat professionals. But they seem to have gone completely off target when understanding the long-term housing needs of these Non Resident Indians (NRIs).
The choice of high profile NRIs in terms of real estate investment is more of emotional urge to come back to the hometown than the locations that are attractive as job magnets. No wonder, more than three-fourth of NRIs, as many as 78 per cent, wish to invest in their hometown.