Independent India - A Real Estate Perspective

Real Estate in India

 

Appropriate housing is now being created for all income levels. The current Government has taken the needs of the people to heart and deployed various policy initiatives to ensure that home ownership becomes affordable and desirable.

In the 71 years since India gained independence, the country’s real estate market has changed tremendously. While it has not always been consumer-favouring throughout this period, it is certainly so today. The country’s cities have expanded, new economic drivers have come in and jobs are being created at all levels. Likewise, appropriate housing is now being created for all income levels. The current Government has taken the needs of the people to heart and deployed various policy initiatives to ensure that homeownership becomes affordable and desirable.

Also, like the real estate market itself, the market for housing loans has become very competitive, giving consumers the edge of choice. Moreover, property prices have also rationalized across the country after the Government's demonetization move late last year. While it was initially expected that only the resale homes and land markets would be affected, it quickly became evident that the lowered sentiment had percolated in primary sales as well.

Buyer sentiment today

For a long time, India's independence did not have too many favourable connotations for aspiring home buyers. Their disadvantageous position had a lot to do with the fact that the real estate market was largely held hostage by developers. Today, this scenario has changed significantly. Over the past two years, we have seen the decisive return of consumer power on the market, with the arrival of the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) providing the final edge.

While RERA is still experiencing teething troubles, it is for certain that it is here to stay - finally putting buyers firmly in the driver seat. The Act is by far the most convincing manifestation of independence for home buyers in modern-day India, promising to eventually bring the residential property market on par with international standards of transparency and accountability to consumers. We are already seeing a return of home buyer interest on the back of this major policy reform, and there will be faster forward momentum going forward.

Meanwhile, the opening up of new locations via rapid infrastructure deployment and various consumer-favouring policy initiatives by the Government are boosting housing affordability. With RERA simultaneously cleaning up the market of unscrupulous elements, the market is becoming larger, more wholesome and more attractive than ever before. We are indeed poised at the cusp of massive change, and the consumer is the primary beneficiary.

Technology-enabled consumer power

The Internet has done a lot more than just open up the Indian real estate market's topography. It has also brought with it a greatly rebooted job market - not only in terms of IT/ITeS jobs but almost all industries as a whole. Today, India is leading from the front in terms of Infotech-enabled businesses, with e-commerce and a thriving start-up culture driving economic growth.

In Independent India today, there are close to 450 million Internet users, and a vast number of new avenues of revenue generation has opened up. In contrast, twenty years ago the means for Indians to make a decent livelihood was restricted to a handful of professions. This has had direct implications on home buyer sentiment.