Crowdfunding in the property market, the world over, is mostly associated with the commercial real estate segment. The most common forms of crowdfunding in the developed property markets are debt and equity.
The data available with Track2Realty suggests that more than half of the property transactions in the last three years have been with the under-construction property. However, purchase of under-construction properties is not as simple as it appears from the standpoint of construction timelines. The process needs extra caution from legal standpoint to make sure the second buyer is not caught between the developers’ vague commitments and the first buyers’ exit without the mandatory processes.
Indian real estate, of late, has woken up to the new reality of consumer blackmailing. While in most of the cases the grudge of the homebuyers has been genuine; it seems there is an organized mechanism emerging that want to encash upon the homebuyers’ acrimony with the developers.
With real estate giving better ROI than any other investment vehicle in the country the investors in the India are today exposed to what is happening in the global market. The investors are hence curious to explore what has been tried and tested format in other matured markets – crowdfunding.
Industry is nevertheless clear that such apprehensions are just teething problems. Jaxay Shah, President, CREDAI maintains that even though most states have not been able to implement it immediately and are in the process of doing so, yet both consumers and developers need to look at it optimistically. There will be teething problems initially, but as the regulatory mechanism sets in place, we will see a smoother transition into the new administration.
In a business that lacked the critical element of trust and transparency, forget brand equity, the entry of corporate conglomerates was widely perceived to be change of business outlook for the sector. The collective consciousness accepted the promise that the corporate giants would change the brand perception of the sector in no time. This load of trust & opportunity goaded many corporate houses into the non-core expertise area of real estate.
The penetration of basic personal packages of insurance like health or home is dismally low. Health Insurance is less than 10 per cent of the people who can afford it. Home insurance is still less at hardly 1 per cent. So, there is scope for personal lines of insurance especially the retail lines of business to grow exponentially.
In residential space, the speculators can go to North India and invest in a pre-launch and make money in one year or two years. For mid to long-term investors the commercial spaces and retail work much better. But if one is looking at the real long term then one should better invest in land; nothing else can give as much returns as the land.
Moving forward, the moot point is whether the builders would decide to postpone their new launches keeping RERA in mind to avoid mid way issues. Within the built environment of real estate it is increasingly being questioned as to whether penalising builders for delays in the projects is justified given they rely on so many external factors. At one point government is coming up with consumer friendly RERA 2017 on the other hand government does not have any system or mechanism to give time bound permission to real estate sector developer, then how government will be successful in implementing the real estate.
A closer look at the sales methodology of the developers suggests while they exaggerate some USPs of the project, they very smartly conceal the information to make their offer look very lucrative to homebuyers.