A friendly budget is always on the wish list of everyone. Across the industries the stakeholders, including the consumers, have more or less the same expectations with the Finance Minister to call it a friendly budget. But in the context of the Indian real estate a friendly budget for the sector does not necessarily mean a homebuyer friendly budget.
A Track2Realty pan-India survey finds that despite of high spending pattern of North Indians in general and Delhi-NCR in particular their investment and aspiration for a second home is far less than the citizens of Mumbai & Pune.
The prevailing sentiment among the home buyers is quite negative. The developers have definitely failed to identify the strategic and operational challenges that can goad the sector to adopt the best practices. There is no specified industry standard that can be widely accepted as best practice and the industry bodies are seen as builders’ lobbies.
The 30th-floor single level unit of the new Four Seasons Private Residences at Embassy ONE has been sold for a record-breaking INR 50 crores, the highest price ever fetched for a branded residence in South India.
Coercing the buyers at the project Victoryone Central in Noida Extension to pay arbitrary demands, the builder is flouting all business ethics, established market norms and his own one-sided Builder Buyer Agreement (BBA).
There is a growing debate within the realm of second home market as to what is the psychograph of the buyer. Whether they actually go for affordability or location or amenities, or all these factors collectively drive the second home buyers. These are the emerging market realities and till recently the property investment pattern across the country in general and Mumbai in particular suggested that there existed a symbiotic relation between the second home and an affordable home.
Second home market is a new phenomenon in urban India but has emerged as a sunrise market in cities like Mumbai. With the ever changing trends the demand for holiday homes has varied according to the consumer’s needs and tastes amongst various cities. Hence, there cannot be a one size fits all answer to the dilemma of location or affordability. For many a second home in India is housing which offers opulent living spaces and ultra-modern luxurious amenities; whereas for others it is a safe investment.
Child friendly homes are ideally suited for parents planning families or those with young children. While this strategy may narrow the market somewhat for the developers since the target buyers is a small group, these homes are ideally suited to people wanting to rent homes as well since they provide a ready environment for the parents who have to deal with many challenges when moving to a new city.
The buyers can also check whether the developer has put in place systems that manage household waste and construction waste, reuse of salvaged material and recycling. For example, some of the developers are using garbage chute that collects the food waste of residents and transfers it to the compost machines to make compost for the green area maintenance. These are the features that really make a project environment friendly and the buyer can ask for these details in writing.
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.