Real estate developers have called for focussed support in the Budget for the first-time home buyer and measures to augment supply of housing for affordable and low income groups. Industry representatives have also called for a simplification of systems and tax reliefs as a step to bringing down costs and catalyse developments.
Don’t wait for the right time to buy a house expecting a price correction, say seven out of ten home buyers who are on house hunting. Contrary to the price correction reports, the property search of prospective buyers and sellers across the country have convinced them that cheaper house in 2011 are a fancy and wishful thinking. At least those who have done their home work on property search are pretty sure about it.
8 out of every ten home buyers in the Indian cities are sulking with the unfair trade practices of the real estate developers. Only 20 per cent of the buyers said they received a defect-free home and timely possession. The low customer satisfaction index was as much evident with developers offering affordable housing as with luxury housing.
As RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Authority) is close to its 7 years of completion, the home buyers across the nation have more to complain than compliment with what was supposed to be a game changer legislation. The buyers rather question as to RERA has been enacted to serve whose purpose. Most of the home buyers across India’s top 10 cities point out that the ground realities have not changed for them. A vast majority of them feel it has opened another window of litigation and thus hurts than helps the buyers. Issues range from lack of transparency to accountability, and existing market realities to consumer interface.
The industry data of faster recovery and record home sales conceal more than it intends to reveal. The rosy outlook fails to address the fact that this is a K-shaped recovery where a handful of large developers with sound financials have grown at the cost of the large universe of the developers. More importantly, the sales registration data doesn’t differentiate between primary market sale and distress sale in the secondary market.
Home buyers point out that it is not only lengthy litigation that defeats their cause but also the fact that the builder continues to challenge the orders of the District Commission in higher courts. Over and above that the builder can also file multiple false cases against the harassed home buyers. The home buyers hence demand that the way NCDRC admits the challenged judgment of the State Commissions on a case-to-case basis, the State Commissions should also adopt the same practice.
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.
A record low household savings, double digit unemployment, and rising inflation, has added to the harsh reality of Indian home buyers’ high Debt to Income (DTI) ratio. The Covid induced financial hardships have indeed wreaked havoc with many of the Indian home buyers. Despite of the advantages of lower interest rates, their DTI ratio has suddenly shot up beyond what could be termed as manageable level.
Today, there are lots of distressed properties in the market where merger and/or takeovers are happening. While it makes sound business sense for both the builders of stressed assets as well as the one having capital to invest, the home buyers with little elbow room to negotiate are often at the receiving end of such market transactions that look promising as an outside view. Ravi Sinha explores the legal options for the home buyers.
Projects worth INR 4,64,300 crore for a total of 575,900 units are already significantly behind schedule. These 5,75,900 units have been stuck since 2013 or before. However, what is even more disturbing than these staggering number is the fact that in many of the states RERA has been diluted to the extent that it allows the erring developers with the existing projects to get away with the fault lines.