Jhumur Ghosh welcomed the panelists, following which Ravi Sinha questioned the global competitiveness of Indian real estate in the wake of thousands of abandoned projects waiting for the funds, the debt-equity ratio imbalance, lending issues, pre-launches without RERA sanctions, and the developers’ defending the indefensible.
Multiple Challenges for HFCs Still in Play: The housing finance sector has been facing challenges, which have led to a contraction in spreads, a rise in funding cost and an increased spotlight on their asset-liability mismatches. Such mismatches have resulted in constrained financing from both market-based sources (CPs and NCDs) and banks for many players.
Fintech is transforming the conventional face of financial services in the country at a rapid pace. Indian customers are becoming more tech-savvy, aware and are accordingly seeking products and services which are up to date and are tailor made specific to their needs. Compared to banks Fintech firms clearly have an edge in terms of product delivery and customization.
This policy ‘trishul’ brought about a paradigm shift in the way Indian real estate does business and laid the groundwork for improved transparency and efficiency in the sector. However, while end-user and investor confidence were rekindled for real estate, it did not exactly set the industry on fire with renewed interest.
The real estate has been calculating the revenue on Percentage Completion Method and not Project Completion Method. With the Percentage Completion Method, the developers treated payment received from the home buyers for purchase of flats under construction as turnover of the company and net income generated from such projects was treated as profit.
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.
With criticism ranging from alleged corruption in the defence deals to slow moving economy, the government that came to the power with these two major planks of fighting corruption and accelerating the economic growth is under pressure. The government is, therefore, left with no option but to present a budget that gives a feel good factor.
With high expectations from 2018, it was anticipated that the teething problems around policy initiative introduced in 2017 (RERA and GST) would ease out by the end of the year, bringing a new order of transparency and efficiency.
Call it market disruption or the innovative disruption or just new marketing strategy but it seems this is the next big idea at a time when the market conditions are really challenging to get noticed. What really is disruptive innovation?
This was also the first quarter where the new accounting standard of IND AS 115 was followed by the company, which uses the project completion method instead of the existing percentage completion method. While some fluctuations in reporting the income are expected, there is no impact on the company’s cash flow or income tax liability, as the company continues to follow percentage completion method under Income Computation and Disclosure Standards (ICDS) for income tax purpose. In other words, it is a compliance requirement which will not have any impact on the overall business of the company. We are confident that on completion of some of the ongoing projects in this financial year, the overall income growth momentum will be maintained