The festive season has traditionally been an active period for real estate sales as many buyers consider Navratri and Diwali an auspicious time to buy property. Like in previous years, developers this year have sweetened property deals – some up-front discounts, or more commonly 0% GST (which is in any case not charged on ready-to-move properties), waived stamp duty and registration charges, free reserved car parking, modular kitchens, etc.
Traditionally, the festive quarter fares better than the previous quarters of the year when it comes to housing sales – the combination of religious sentiment and festive deals and freebies is a potent mix during this part of the year. For instance, Q4 2015 saw 70,000 homes sold in the seven major cities. However, as tempting as it was for developers to believe that this was an unshakeable performance standard, it was certainly shaken just a year later. After demonetization (DeMo) was announced in this critical quarter in 2016, housing sales halved to 32,100 units.
Highly-established developers are known to conduct careful research on their locations and are therefore able to pinpoint the most happening growth corridors. They know what product works best, and where it works best. While end-users are assured that they are buying into a well-researched area, this fact also ‘raises the bottom’ for investors who are looking for the right product to back.
In the ‘golden years’ of India’s housing market, property was the default go-to option for big-ticket investment. With real estate’s fading allure, investors began exploring other options and found them to quite rewarding. For instance, they can invest in a start-up with sums as ‘low’ as INR 10 lakhs. Many entrepreneurially-inclined Indians find the potential ROI (as high as 15% in many instances) makes more sense. Mutual funds provide good returns and the entry level is low enough to be affordable to many.
It was not the magic wand it was hoped to be. However, over the past two years, the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) has brought more sanity – and the return of consumer power – than seemed possible in such a short time. The real estate sector is still struggling with it and the Act is very much work-in-progress in many states, but RERA nevertheless hangs like a sword of Damocles over a previously unregulated industry. Eventual compliance across the board seems inevitable.
The reasons for vacancy levels of homes which could feed the rental market across the country are largely region-specific. However, distorted property rights (in the absence of a sound rental policy), weak rental contract implementation and low rental yields are some of the major factors that prompt homeowners to leave their houses vacant rather than rent them out.
Most of the analysts who track the local property market maintain that the emerging market realities and the economy of the region has changed the way people look at the housing. This change has been pretty fast in the last over a decade. It is a paradigm shift in the housing market of the city.
Entity-level investment is an efficient strategy to get a firmer foothold in the real estate market. It allows a private equity investment firm to not only deploy its capital but also gain synergetic skills in the real estate marketplace. PE firms invariably look for high levels of corporate governance in a real estate development company before deciding to invest in it at an entity level.
I am a home buyer from Mumbai and I want to make a confession that I have survivor’s guilt. I could buy a house at a time others in my peer group could not. My problem is that how to say it loudly about my lack of vision when the world has appreciation in the eyes for my home ownership. But I know how much it is painful to buy a house.
Is there something in the very DNA of the city that makes every global forecast refer Chennai as the future city on the global map? Analysts believe Chennai is not only the capital city of Tamil Nadu but is also the largest industrial and commercial centre in South India. The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is the flagship Urban Local Body in the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA). The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) is the oldest municipal Institution in India.