In the biggest realty deal in the country this year, DLF Monday announced sale of 17 acres of prime land in Mumbai to Lodha Developers for Rs 2,700 crore, almost four times higher than the price it had paid in 2005.
DLF on Tuesday, Aug 7, said it expects to close sale of three non-core assets, which will help pare its debt by about 5,000 crore, by the end of the current fiscal.
Beyond what is happening in the strategic board room meetings of realty companies, market is cautiously optimistic that with the inventories piling up, developers will sooner or later be forced to blink. A look at the recent developments in the sector does indicate that prices can come down, but it all depends on the builders holding power.
During the boom, many developers dreamed of transforming the urban landscape with millions of square feet of homes, offices and malls and set off on an aggressive expansion financed with debt that at 6 percent interest was cheap by Indian standards.
Realty sector may appear to be bullish and project that downside is over with rosy forecast ahead, yet the decline in fortune is far from being over. As a matter of fact, the learning in the last four years has made most of the leading players to restructure their project portfolio and shed the flab.
Spiraling property prices and slump in home sales have forced the Union Housing Ministry to think out-of-the-box solutions. After the decision to set up a high-level committee to recommend policy interventions to facilitate creation of rental housing stocks, the ministry has now sought views from private developers and builders to evolve a strategy for reducing the time taken in approval of real estate projects that can help bring down the cost of houses.
Omaxe has reported a more than two-fold jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 23.73 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2012 as against Rs 11.67 crore in the year-ago period.
The income from operations increased by six per cent to Rs 603.58 crore in the fourth quarter of 2011-12 as compared with Rs 568.60 crore in the corresponding period of previous year.
When the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was to announce its annual monetary policy for 2012-13 on 17th April, there were widespread concerns of slowing economy, rising inflation, trade deficit of 4 per cent of GDP and drying FDI too emerging as a grace concerns
After a sharp recovery in the first one-and-a-half months of the calendar year — the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Realty Index gained over 50 per cent, real estate stocks seem to have lost steam.
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.