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.
The Union Budget 2023-24 has offered more intangible benefits than tangible gains for the real estate sector. It is hence no surprise that while the average home buyers got busy in their tax calculations immediately after the Finance Minister’s budget speech, the industry stakeholders have by and large given a thumbs up to the budget. A Track2Realty report.
The reduction in Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPAs) is forecasted to continue in FY2023 following the reduction of 6 bps in Q1 FY2023. The GNPA assessment has been retained at 2.7-3.0% as of March 31, 2023. With growth in both the scale as well as improvement in asset quality indicators, the profitability is forecasted to revive almost to the pre-Covid level by the end of FY2023.
I meet a number of stakeholders across the built environment of Indian real estate. One common narrative that has gained ground within the built environment over the years is that “this is the best time to buy a house.” Mind you! This narrative was being pushed through the throat even before Covid. Even though the real estate market in general and the housing market in particular has been going through a turbulent phase, the narrative has never changed its course.
Home buying is more often than not linked to the financial health of the home buyers. However, mental health is as important as the financial health and the Indian housing market seems to rob the buyers the much needed peace and happiness that comes with an asset class like the home. The stress and anxiety is not limited to finding the right home, rather the real mental stress begins once one has bought the dream house. A Track2Realty pan-India survey.
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.
Tracking the sentiment is not that easy in the business of Indian real estate. There is no ideal predictive model that could assess the sentiments of both the developers as well as the buyers. The leading voices of the sector has never been very consistent with their budget wish list and the post budget customary note. The most important stakeholders, the home buyers, are more often than not completely ignored when it comes to sentiment assessment post the Union Budget.
It is the story of a debt ridden real estate company that is financially overleveraged; gone beyond execution capabilities; has multi-city penetration; is into multiple businesses; and the promoters are just delaying the inevitable. The developer that you instantly recall is China’s Evergrande. It’s the talk of the town across the built environment of global real estate today. But wait! Has India not been witness to its own Evergrande moment (though on a smaller scale) in the past? Track2Realty speaks to cross section of industry analysts.
What is icing on the cake for the developers in these smaller towns now is the fact that they are getting the labour force at a much lower cost. Explaining this trend, Sandeep Agrawal, a property broker in Patna says that the labours were getting their daily wages in the Delhi NCR region in the range of INR 350-500, depending upon the project. But now they are more than willing to work at INR 250 in places like Patna, Kanpur, Kochi etc where they are stationed in proximity to their home towns and the cost of living is much lesser, compared to the metro cities.
Driving down the Noida-Greater Noida property market in general and the Greater Noida West, better known as Noida Extension in popular parlance, could be a delightful rendezvous for any news hungry journalist. Which scribe won’t want a dose of controversy and sensationalism for filing a juicy story? And this market has it all – housing project delays, defaults, cheating, harassment, builders’ high handedness, blatant lies with oozing confidence, and last but not the least, consumer protest all around.