Sunil Dahiya: When the meltdown of 2008 and the aftereffects of 2009 rolled in, see the amount of letters sent by developers to the customers and the customer calling back and telling that ‘sorry boss, I am on the verge of losing my job, I don’t have the money’. Not a single developer went to any court or had any power in this judicial system to recover any payment from the consumer, there is no law.
Ravi Sinha: I welcome all the panelists in this roundtable discussion. We are organizing the brain storming session for our inaugural yearly Handbook Focus 2012. This is the second of the series after the 1st discussion in Mumbai on “Funding Gap in Real Estate.”
Pranay Vakil: The problem is when having sanctioned the loan, there is no fear of revoking it. You can change your mind because these funds are kind of committed. When engage Shapoorji Pallonji or L&T to execute a project, you enter into a contract and you say that this is how we are going to make payments. Suddenly, if you are to switch off the tap, it is going to cause a lot of embarrassment to the developer.
Realty major DLF may not extend sponsorship to the Indian Premier League (IPL) after its first five-year deal expires this year. According to DLF sources, they have conveyed this to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Call it the fallout of Competition Commission of India (CCI) penalty on the biggest real estate company DLF in a Gurgaon case last August, there has been a rush of complaints at the CCI against several property majors since then. According to CCI officials at least 200 complaint letters came to them against real estate players, of them around 15 were official cases.
Come budget and the real estate sector, like any other industry, comes out with its own wish list. Unfortunately, while other organised industry get a patient hearing through their industry bodies, the Finance minister seem to be hardly entertaining the sector representatives till recently.
In a bid to boost housing sector credit, the Indian government is contemplating to enhance the income-tax exemption for up to Rs 3 lakh paid as interest on housing loans in a year, from the existing limit of Rs 1.5 lakh.
A recent industry report shows that FDI in 2010-11 was the lowest in the last four years. According to the FICCI-Ernst & Young real estate report, the FDI in the sector declined to 6 per cent of the total direct investment coming to India in 2010-11.
Red Fort Capital, an India-focussed real estate private equity firm,…
Kotak Realty Fund, owned by India’s fifth largest private sector lender by revenue, raised Rs.523 crore to lend to real estate developers with an assured return.