Ever since the beginning of the year 2023, the real estate industry stakeholders are going gaga with the narrative of a turnaround year. It is not that such misplaced optimism has not hurt their cause in the past, but the leading voices of the sector seem to believe that a false narrative would goad the home buyers to make a beeline at the sales office. The industry narrative is hence tilted towards what could easily be vouchsafed as misplaced optimism.
CREDAI as a real estate industry body fails miserably time & again to gain public & policy level acceptance. Reason: Shady builders have more often than not been operating as the elected office bearers of CREDAI. The situation is all the more grave with CREDAI NCR team that believes in convince, confuse or corrupt philosophy of public, policy & media engagement. In his diary of a real estate journalist, Ravi Sinha highlights how focus on projection than perception change at the ground has been the nemesis of CREDAI in general and CREDAI NCR in particular.
Just when the real estate industry bodies had firmed up their public posturing to halt construction with allegation of cartelisation by the cement & steel producers, there was uneasiness at the developers’ end. Many of them had their back of the envelope calculation as to whether the construction strike would actually help or hurt the business. Track2Realty tries to get into the depth of the issue.
The real estate industry stakeholders are debating over the design changes and other functional changes in the housing projects after Coronavirus. An impression is gaining ground that the developers have the realization that the world has changed due to pandemic and they need to alter to fit into the buyers’ needs. An online poll by Track2Realty nevertheless finds that the industry is off the mark when it comes to read the pulse of the buyers. The buyers are not looking for knee jerk design changes but housing to have long term functional changes.
In the financial sector, housing finance is relatively a new concept as the government took interest in the last two decades to diminish the housing problem in India. However, the participation of banks and financial institutions in the housing credit sector has swelled and the sector itself has evolved over the years, fuelled also by the concurrent evolution in government regulations in the sector and real estate industry as a whole.
National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO has requested Government to address the key concerns of the real estate industry and home buyers, offer tax incentives across housing segments and boost buyer’s confidence through a slew of measures in the upcoming interim Union Budget 2019-20.
The transition of the real estate market has changed the dynamics of the sector completely. After the advent, multiple policies and regulation of the real estate industry has seen a paradigm shift with systemic checks and streamlined process.
Real estate industry in our nation has always been in question due to prevailing autonomous rules and guidelines of every developer. There is an immediate need of a governing body which can address all such concerns of the sector. Government of India at national level has already introduced RERA which will address all these concerns.
How relevant is the introduction of REITs when it comes to providing a new opportunity to get funds for the Indian real estate industry? Consider first, that India’s real estate has struggled to reduce debt, given that interest rates are among the highest in Asia. And, also consider that REITs will provide investors an opportunity to buy into India’s real estate market – these two aspects are just the basics.
An industry leader, Kaustuv brings over two decades of real estate industry experience. Kaustuv’s appointment as Managing Director for New Business growth in India marks his return to Cushman & Wakefield.