UP Attracts More Investments due to Good Infrastructure and Liberal Policies: Akhilesh Yadav

One cannot see India progressing if Uttar Pradesh’s contribution to the country’s economy is removed, UP Chief Minister, Akhilesh Yadav has said at an ASSOCHAM event held in Lucknow.

“It is a wrong notion that nothing happens in a right manner in Uttar Pradesh because if one removes the state’s contribution to the Indian economy then you can see that country is not progressing,” said Yadav while inaugurating a conference on ‘Uttar Pradesh @Double Digit Growth: Unfolding Investment Opportunities,’ organised by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

“Uttar Pradesh has been able to draw industrialists and investors in large numbers as we have good infrastructure, our policies are lucrative and we have been able to provide an overall positive environment and thus today we can think of attaining double digit growth,” said the chief minister.

Terming his government ‘very liberal’ and ‘easily accessible,’ he said, “It is due to these efforts that we have been able to create a new atmosphere in this state.”

“We are committed towards development of Uttar Pradesh, while the government is implementing its policies it needs the support from trade and industry without which we cannot attain the desired level of growth and development,” he added.

Lauding the efforts of his government in fast tracking metro rail construction in the state capital of Lucknow, Yadav said, “Today whosoever visits Lucknow cannot escape from witnessing the growth in the state.”

“There are so many states that only talk about starting metro rail but have not succeeded, however a huge state like UP is undertaking metro rail work in Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, we will soon start construction in Kanpur and if all goes well we will start metro work in Prime Minister's constituency of Varanasi,” added the UP chief minister.

“This has the potential to change our image, increase business and bring change,” he further said.

He also said that state government would work towards developing Noida as an international financial hub and is even willing to take the support of union government if required.

Amid others who spoke at the ASSOCHAM conference included: Nitin Agarwal, minister for MSME; Rajendra Chaudhary, minister political pension; Alok Ranjan, chief secretary; Mahesh Gupta, principal secretary – industries; Sunil Kanoria, President, ASSOCHAM; Dr Lalit Khaitan, chairman, ASSOCHAM Northern Region Development Council; Vineet Mittal, chairman, ASSOCHAM Solar Task Force and D.S. Rawat, Secretary General.

Construction Industry can Help India Sail Through Any Global Crisis: ASSOCHAM

In the midst of doom and gloom in the global economy with consequential impact on India, highly job-oriented construction industry can give quite positive results in terms of stepping up economic growth, more employment and raising  tax revenue for the government, if the stress-ridden sector is provided immediate succour,  an ASSOCHAM-TARI study pointed out.

“Construction sector, which is the second largest employment generator after agriculture, comprising roads, ports, airports, bridges and real estate, has the multiplier potential to create benefits at least double the size of direct inputs,” highlighted the study titled ‘Construction industry: Contributing to Make in India,’ conducted by The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) jointly with Thought Arbitrage Research Institute (TARI).

“The output multiplier demonstrates how an increase in demand of Indian construction sector can lead to an increase in overall output of the economy by 2.4 times thereby showcasing strong backward linkages of the sector with ancillary and complementary industries such as cement, steel, iron, bricks, sand, chemicals, heavy machines and equipment, sanitary ware, wood, electrical and other fixtures, paints and others,” noted the study.

“Over 75 percent of real estate projects of the total investments worth over Rs 14 lakh crore remained non starter (under implementation) as of FY15 owing to plethora of issues like delays in environmental clearances, project approvals, acquisition, lack of finance and carrying the baggage of badly executed public-private-partnership (PPP) models that are crippling growth of construction in India,” said ASSOCHAM Secretary General, D S Rawat. Others who spoke at the event included: Kshama V Kaushik, director, TARI and Babulal Jain, senior member, ASSOCHAM Managing Committee in Noida.

“One of the major problems facing the industry is a high level of debt on their balance sheets, resulting from project delays which, in turn, were caused by things like environmental issues both at the state and Central levels,” said Rawat.

“With the union government liberalising Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) rules in realty and construction sectors, we are hopeful that it will lift the affordable housing space, revive steel, cement and other related sectors, rev up employment scenario and boost the GDP (gross domestic product) growth,” he added.

The kinds of benefits which can accrue to the economy are worth pursuing rigorously, at this point of time when Indian economy is no more insulated from major problems facing the world.

 “Look at the way, the market has melted with Sensex nose-diving , further curtailing the ability of the companies in the construction to tap the market and reduce their debt burden while fresh projects are difficult to launch in the wake of huge funds locked in delayed projects,” said Rawat.

He added that financial results of most of the listed firms in the construction sector for the third quarter are going to disappoint investors.  

Production process is closely associated with employment, value addition and taxes.  In the long run, the future looks promising.

Rise in employment across the economy because of a rise of ` 1 of demand is roughly 3 times the rise in employment within the sector. Similarly, rising demand can lead to: increase in value addition of the economy by roughly three times the value addition within the sector; and increase in indirect tax collections in the economy by approximately two times that of the tax collections from the sector.

It is an acknowledged fact that construction has the potential to drive and revive manufacturing in any economy. The construction sector’s contribution to GDP in India has stayed fairly constant at around 7-8% for the last five years.

These factors along with strong backward and forward linkages of the sector with other manufacturing industries, make this sector a natural priority sector for the government and the focus of this report.

Besides, construction industry also has strong linkages with other manufacturing industries – it absorbs 40-45% of the steel industry’s output, 85% of the paint industry, 65-70% of the glass industry and a significant share of the automotive, mining and excavation equipment industries.

The ASSOCHAM-TARI study has estimated the output multiplier of the construction sector to be 2.384, this means, an increase of ` 1 in final demand in the construction sector will lead to an increase of the overall output of the economy by two times

It has estimated the employment multiplier of the construction sector to be 2.88, which is means, employment generated in the economy because of rise in demand of the construction sector is 2.88 times of the employment created in the sector itself

The study has estimated the tax multiplier of the construction sector to be 1.962.This means that rise in indirect tax collections generated in the economy because of rise in demand of the construction sector is approximately double the rise in indirect tax collection from the sector itself.

Real estate investment scenario in UP as of FY15:

UP has attracted about 16 per cent of the total investments worth over Rs 12 lakh crore attracted by real estate sector from private investors (including both domestic and foreign) as of FY 2014-15 in India and has managed to increase its share from just 0.1 per cent to 16 per cent during the last decade in this regard.

Within UP, private players accounted for over 98 per cent share in total investments attracted by real estate sector.

Real estate investments in UP have grown at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 32 per cent during almost a decade (b/w 2005-06 and 2014-15).

Over 86 per cent of real estate projects in UP remained stuck and are facing a delay of about 35 months on an average.

Union Budget 2016: Developers look up to FM for revival

It’s Budget time again, and Indian real estate sector is yet again pinning on the hope of a slew of measures from the government which will see the revival of the struggling sector. 

While most of builders and realty experts believe that measures to improve consumer sentiments through income tax rebates and reduction in borrowing rates can put the life back into the system, others want the government to take long term measures by implementing the much-talked about REITs, Special Residential Zones and Real Estate Mutual Funds (REMFs) to make the real estate more vibrant. Here are the excerpts.

N. Nandakumar, Former President, CREDAI Tamil Nadu & MD,Devinarayan Housing and Property Developments Pvt Ltd.

As the Real Estate Sector has undergone considerable stress over the past couple of years, it is inevitable to announce substantial credible measures in the Union Budget 2016 with a long term view of reviving the Industry.  If the Central Government’s vision “Housing for All” is to be accomplished, the primary factors those influence the affordability needs to be definitely considered.

Few of the key areas that the FM should look into are:

·         - Raising the limit on interest payment towards exemption from tax purview.

·         - Announcing current threshold for principal repayment as part of Income tax deduction.

·         - Debt restructuring for all project loans given to developers without levy of penal interest and additional charges.

·        -  Initiatives that would lead RBI to consider special rate of interest for the category of affordable loans for different cities and metros as against the present uniform home loan policy.

·        -  Review the service tax component and other taxes for affordable home projects together with permitting creation of special residential zones which would cater exclusively to the lower middle income group and middle income group and EWS sectors.

·         - Abolishing import duties on construction equipment which would lead to more automation thereby reducing the project times and cost.

·         - Provide tax incentives for import of technology for rapid construction / cost optimisation.

·         - Reduce the implications of environmental clearances by increasing the threshold from 20,000 sq.m to 150,000 sq.m which would save considerable time and also provide the mandate to the local approving authorities by suitably incorporating norms to be adopted and development regulations of each state’s urban bodies.

Anuj Puri, Chairman & Country Head, JLL India

The real estate sector, which is emerging from a painful and prolonged slowdown, is expecting favourable and growth-stimulating announcements from the government in its forthcoming Union Budget. One of the major issues, property investors and home buyers face, is delay in completion of projects by builders across the country.

The government should offer buyers financial protection from construction delays. The existing provision allows buyers to claim tax benefit upto Rs 2 lakh for under construction property which should be completed within three years. If the completion date extends, the benefits reduce to Rs 30000 and the burden of buyers multiplies as they have to pay EMIs along with the rent for their current accommodation.

Instead of offering them full tax benefits only from post-possession, home buyers should also enjoy the benefits right from the time they start paying interest on their home loan. This will ease their monetary burden considerably and help more home loan disbursements. Similarly, as per the present provision, if a buyer purchases an under-construction property from capital gains, he can avail exemption only if the construction is completed within three years. Since there can be delays due to various reasons, the construction timeline should be extended to five years.

Provide more tax saving on home loan and house insurance premiums. The current limit of Rs 2 lakh should be enhanced to Rs 3 lakh to benefit more. Also, tax concessions on house insurance premiums should be introduced to encourage users to insure their homes from various natural calamities.

Rise house rent deduction limit for self employed, who draw pays without an HRA component, from the current maximum deduction limit of Rs 2,000 a month under 80GG.

As construction industry takes lion’s share in environment pollution, the Budget should provide more incentives to boost green buildings for sustainable development. Since the cost-factor plays a major role, the government should absorb the extra cost and introduce incentives to encourage buyers/builders to go green.

Make additional allocation to develop infrastructure in fringe areas of cities and metros to promote affordable housing. Also, developers of affordable housing projects should be provided with cheaper finance options to complete the projects in time.

Remove the Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) to encourage REITs.  There has not been a single REIT listing ever since the announcement last year. The presence of DDT deters people to venture into it. The government should do away with it in the Budget.

Provide clarity on GST implementation. For the revival of commercial real estate, implementation of GST is vital. The government should indicate specific date for its implementation. The retail and ecommerce sectors also seek earlier implementation of GST.

Arvind Jain, Managing Director - Pride Group

Every Indian plans to buy a home as and when it becomes financially viable for him or her to do so, and every year brings a new section of young Indians who enter the stream of employed and harbor this aspiration. For potential home buyers, favourable budget is one of the major decision-makers.

Positive changes in indirect and direct taxation policy for salaried class, as well as incentives on property purchase, can boost their financial confidence. Raising the income tax exemption limit will have positive impact on long-term saving and spending patterns. As property is the most favoured investment option for every Indian, the available of more disposable income can satisfy their aspiration. Similarly, tax sops on home loans will trigger more demand for homes and hence help revive the industry.

Parveen Jain, national president, NAREDCO

The top real estate body National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) too has lined-up a set of proposals to be included in the budget for the revival of sagging realty sector.

NAREDCO President Parveen Jain emphasized the need of industry status to the real estate sector and infrastructure status to the housing sector to enable them to attract more investments from large companies and inculcate a sense of “corporate culture and discipline” which will benefit the economy in general and customers in particular.

There should be Special Residential Zones (SRZs) for low cost or affordable housing similar to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in PPP model where incentives and concessions should be provided through a single window. This will increase the supply of affordable homes in the country.

Land parcel should be adequately increased to meet the demand of 18.78 million housing units for EWS and LIG categories. To achieve the target of 20 million dwellings by 2022, the land and bank financing should be made easy.

Similar to other developing countries, the Housing Finance Companies (HFCs) should get an access to long-term funds like Provident Fund, Pension funds and Insurance for infrastructure and housing development.

Also banks should hike their allocation for housing from the current 3 per cent to 5 per cent of their incremental deposits. This additional fund should be channelized through HFCs registered under National Housing Bank.

To lessen the burden on home buyers, the government should increase the tax limit to Rs 3 lakh from the present Rs 2 lakh of the interest paid on home loans on a self-occupied house.

The three years period for completion from the year of borrowing should be abolished as this will provide the much-needed impetus to housing sector.

The priority sector lending should be extended for home loans – up to Rs 25 lakh for rural, small and medium cities, Rs 35 lakh for metros and Rs 50 lakh for mega cities.

Rental income should be taxed at a flat 10% rate. This will bring down the rentals.

The government should give top priority to Real Estate Mutual Funds (REMFs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and make them free from income tax for at least for 10 years, both for non-residents and residents.

External commercial borrowing should be allowed in all spheres of housing and realty development, including SEZ projects, and FDI is allowed in all housing projects including the under construction ones.

The real estate experts believe that given the required impetus, the real estate sector has the ability to turn around the Indian economy because of its forward and backward linkages with other key sectors and huge employment potential. Will the Union Budget 2016 meet their expectations and revive the sector or disappoint them again with a lacklustre show? We have to wait and watch!

This article also published in Merinews.com

Riveria Group Launches Real Estate Portal 3villaz.com for Dubai and Indian Investors

DUBAI, UAE: Riveria Global Group has launched a new website to provide search and comparison for home buyers, and also offers full service marketing for sellers in two ultra-lucrative markets Dubai and India.

3villaz.com, a comprehensive new property portal, has been launched by Dubai-based Riveria Global Group to assist big ticket real estate buyers wanting to invest in the lucrative Dubai and India property markets to find the perfect deal.

The site is created for investors and proposes various options currently available in Dubai and India - two markets that offer attractive options for good return on investment (RoI).

Since the last decade, the Riveria Group has been actively involved in the real estate business in Dubai and Mumbai, and the directors have a clear view of the direction of the real estate industry in both these cities. Currently, there are many good investment options available in both destinations, in various sizes, starting from 100,000 US dollars.

On 3villaz.com buyers can post their requirement and the best options will be suggested to them - rather than them having to do a time consuming search and comparison through hundreds of properties. On the flipside, property owners can post their properties for sale or rent and the team behind 3villaz.com will do all the needed professional marketing.

Dinesh Gurnani, Director of Riveria Global Group

"If you are looking for fantastic investment options in Dubai or India, 3villaz.com can bring you the best investment options with the return on investment ranging between 5 to 15 per cent per annum," said Dinesh Ramchand, Managing Director of Riveria Global Group, Dubai.

"Our company specializes in leasehold and freehold properties. We have a range of investment options including for residential, commercial buildings, hotels and hotel apartments, with ready rental income for sale and lease. We also have open land for residential, commercial, mix-use and industrial use, villa complexes, staff and labour accommodation, and warehousing. Landlords, developers, and real estate brokerage companies can also list their real estate inventory for sale or lease and benefit from the extensive reach of the portal across the world," Dinesh added.

Apart from real estate, Riveria Global has a well-established ATL and BTL advertising division offering a wide range of marketing services to help businesses establish their brand in the market. These include branding, email marketing, online marketing, outdoor advertising, printing, SEO, SMO, web development, and more.

The Group also has an exclusive interior design arm, offering top quality services to residential and commercial clients in Dubai.

Buildzar Raises $4 Million From Individual Investor Puneet Dalmia

Buildzar.com, Gurgaon-based consumer-Internet platform caters to individual home builders, apartment owners and small and medium sized builders and contractors, has received $4 million funding from individual investor Puneet Dalmia in pre-series A funding.

Offering end-to-end 'turnkey' solutions including design, labor services and materials, Buildzar.com aims to concretize its position as the de-facto platform for all home building related products and services by leveraging technology and offering productized solutions to its consumers, a press release said.

Talking about the venture, Vineet Singh, Co-Founder, CEO & MD, Buildzar.com said, "Building a home is perhaps the longest and highest value transaction in an individual's lifetime. The fact that the new age customer is younger, Internet-savvy, and is willing to pay for standardization and quality, makes this business even more exciting for us. Our vision is to give consumer the power to manage a complex thing like construction, using only their mobile phone."

About the latest round of funding, Puneet Dalmia, MD & CEO Dalmia Cement Bharat Ltd, said, "Buildzar.com is leading the market with little competition when it comes to the kind of services and product portfolio it provides. It has etched out a clear path to profitability on the back of its first mover advantage, an outstanding team, asset-light operations and a revenue-focused approach. With its promise of 100% guaranteed quality at best prices, and a strong consumer focus, Buildzar is pegged to resolve the pain points in the construction services industry in India through its unique O2O (online-to-offline) model."

Buildzar.com offers a comprehensive bouquet of products and services under two verticals: The Material Store - a marketplace having over 20,000 products related to civil, electrical, plumbing, paints, flooring, kitchen bathroom etc. and BuildMyHome - a curated platform for design and contracting services with over 70 contractors and architects on its platform.

In the $150 billion individual home construction market, 30,000 new houses are constructed every year in Delhi NCR itself, where the average cost of building a house ranges between INR 6 million - 100 million. The market, however, is largely fragmented and remains marred with basic issues of trust and quality.

Buildzar came up with several other innovations in its Material Store, offerings like organizing the entire store by budget, bundling of products as per construction stage into 'Combos', and selling the entire Bill of Materials (BOM) rather than selling individual SKUs. In the recently-launched BuildMyHome , Buildzar offers hassle-free building and renovation experience to the consumer by providing end-to-end design, supply and build solutions through qualified and professional service providers, standardized rates and service level agreements (SLAs), guaranteed-adherence to project cost and timelines, and warranties up to seven years.

The team is developing project management tool, through which a home builder can monitor all her construction-related metrics like cost-incurred, projected completion timelines, inventory etc. on a real-time basis and can also receive live feeds, alerts and updates on his project.

Buildzar is live on desktop and mobile through its Android and iOS app. It is already clocking 750-800 orders on a monthly basis since the beginning of its operations in September 2015, with steel and cement being the leading categories. With an integrated effort to scale higher margins through its turnkey solutions and acquire market share through full stack of products, Buildzar is poised to create an indisputable dominance in a market that has been barely tapped in the e-commerce domain.

While the company's current focus is on consolidating the business in the Delhi NCR region, which alone is valued at $9-10 billion, in the next 6 months it aims to expand their operations across southern markets starting with Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.

NAREDCO suggests slew of measures to put real estate sector back on track

(From L to R): R R Singh, DG, NAREDCO , Shakuntala Iyer, Director, Shander Properties , Navin Raheja, Governing Council Member, NAREDCO , Parveen Jain, President, NAREDCO , Gourav Jain, MD & CEO, Jindal Reality Ltd. and  Vijay Gupta,Orris Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd.

As preparations for the 2016 Union Budget are underway, the top real estate body National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) has lined-up a set of proposals and requested the Finance Minister to include them to bring back the sagging realty sector on growth trail.

NAREDCO President Parveen Jain in a pre-budget Memorandum to the Government, wanted industry status to the real estate sector which he said will enable it to recover from severe slowdown. 

“Industry status will attract large companies and most importantly inculcate “corporate culture” and “industry discipline” which will immensely benefit the economy in general and consumers in particular,” he said.

According to him, most industry rules and regulations are applicable to real estate sector also and denial of industry status for funding purposes to the sector will further worsen the existing financial crunch and slowdown in demand because of erosion of capital and loss of confidence of investors and buyers.

Navin M Raheja, GC member and Patron along with Parveen Jain, president Naredco

NAREDCO has also demanded “infrastructure status” to the Housing sector, a long standing demand of the real estate developers, by adding a clause to the definition of “infrastructure facility” under u/s 80IA of IT Act 1961.

Explaining further about the clause to be added he said: The clause should read: “An integrated township and group housing development on area more than 10 acres involving provision of residential, educational, medical, community, commercial or institutional buildings and creation of required facilities including roads, water supply, water treatment, sanitation and sewerage systems and solid waste treatment and management systems”.

Jain also demanded creation of Special Residential Zones (SRZs) for affordable housing on the lines of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where special concessions and incentives are built together with single window clearances. This will help increase supply of affordable housing on a large scale.

Central and State Governments, in the past, have attempted to address large number of issues detrimental to housing growth and provided fiscal concessions to builders and home buyers and tried to build strong public-private partnership to boost housing growth. In many ways it has paid dividends, but still there is lot to be done to provide shelter to all.

Jain said that the government land, wherever available, should be used as equity and government agencies encouraged to assemble additional land as much as possible. India is short of 18.78 million housing units and 96% of it is in EWS and LIG categories. Government is targeting to build 2 crore housing units by 2022. All this will be possible if land and bank financing is made easy.

He said that Housing Finance Companies (HFCs) should be allowed access to long-term funds such as Provident Fund, Insurance and Pension funds as all developing countries have access to such long term funds for housing and infrastructure development.

NAREDCO has suggested that banks should increase their allocation for housing from the present 3% to 5% of their incremental deposit. The additional 2% incremental allocation may be earmarked exclusively for canalizing it through housing finance companies registered with National Housing Bank.

President NAREDCO has requested government to give push to the real estate sector by increasing tax limit to Rs 3 lakh from Rs 2 lakh of interest paid on home loans on a self-occupied house.

Also, three years period for acquisition or completion from the year of borrowing should be dispensed with, said NAREDCO President, Parveen Jain, adding that this will provide much needed impetus to housing sector which is reeling under huge housing shortage in the country.

He said that priority sector lending need to be extended for home loans upto Rs 25 lakh for rural, small and medium cities, Rs 35 lakh for metropolitan cities and Rs 50 lakh for mega cities. Also, income from renting of properties should be taxed at a flat rate of 10%, he said, adding that high cost of houses and high property taxes lead to low rate of return (ROR) from rental housing, making renting out an un-remunerative proposition.

Jain said that the residential construction be taken out of 14.5% service tax net in the first place and this exemption should cover the builders and developers who are registered. Rise in excise duty on cement and steel would raise the unit cost by about 4 to 5%.

Jain asked the government to make real estate mutual funds (REMFs) and real estate investment funds (REITs) free from income tax for at least for 10 years both for residents and non-residents. The world over, REITs have been very effective instrument and source for funding housing projects because of various fiscal concessions and incentives provided by various governments to REIT units and the shareholders.

Demanding external commercial borrowing in all spheres of housing and real estate development, including SEZ projects, Jain said funding to real estate be allowed through FDI, particularly in under construction projects.

The size of Indian real estate market in 2013 was estimated to be USD 78.5 billion which is likely to grow to USD 140 billion by 2017. Between 2009-11, FDI investment grew at 8% but witnessed deceleration during 2012-13 to around 6.5% primarily due to sluggish growth of Indian economy, rising input cost and overall global economic sentiments. Now there is need to give push to this through fiscal incentives.

Jain emphasized that, given the impetus required, real estate sector has the potential to turn around the Indian economy and contribute to the growth of the country because of its backward and forward linkages with other sectors of economy and huge job potential.

Why Developers Launch Projects Even In Slow Market Conditions

Kishor Pate

Top developers have a strategy of launching new projects even in a slow market, and there is sound logic behind this. There is always demand for residential projects at convenient locations and with good amenities. If the pricing of the project is also in line with what buyers are willing to pay, there is no reason why sales will not be generated. 

Market research confirms that sales are taking place, even if it is at a slower rate. These sales are happening for the right kinds of projects – it is projects in the wrong locations, with fewer or the wrong kinds of amenities and with the wrong pricing that are finding no takers.

As a matter of fact, prices of projects have been showing a gradually decreasing trend over the last one year. Developers are offering lucrative deals and discounts on their projects, thereby helping to create end-user markets rather than just pandering to investors, as had been the trend in the past.

Overall, it can be said that the residential real estate industry has reached its lowest trough both with regard to prices and sales. The only change that can now come to the market is a positive one, and the graph will begin rising upward from here onward, not least of all because the Indian economy has strengthened and will continue to gain in strength going forward.

The government is also extending more support to the real estate industry than ever before, and the cumulative results of these favourable circumstances will definitely be seen from this year onward. With India makes strong strides on the path of development, interest in real estate investment is going to increase steeply over the coming years.

Today, cities still accommodate only about 40% of the population in India. But with increasing economic growth, more and more people will shift to urban areas, spawning more and more demand for homes in all price ranges. Developers who continue to launch their projects even while the market is slow are investing in this future.

If we take a closer look at the unsold inventory of residential real estate in India today, the numbers are undoubtedly large. Nevertheless, there is no shortage of new launches scheduled. In fact, we will see even more residential supply hitting the market in 2016 than we saw in 2015. 

It is pertinent to note that most of the unsold projects in India today are the result of deficient planning on the part of their developers. They have chosen flawed or hopelessly futuristic locations where people are not interested in moving, and/or have included high-end amenities that drive up the overall cost beyond what buyers are willing to pay.

As we embark into 2016, we will see that the new residential launches are more aligned with the existing demand, both in terms of pricing and what they have to offer.

About the Author

Kishor Pate, Chairman & Managing Director of Amit Enterprises Housing Ltd. is the driving force behind one of the most successful real estate development firms in Pune and beyond. Apart from its signature luxury homes towers and premium gated townships, AEHL has also launched highly successful affordable housing projects like Astonia Classic and Colori in Undri and the Mediterranean-style township Astonia Royale in Ambegaon.