Current scenario of the Indian Realty Market

Till a few months back, the real estate industry in India was witnessing a boom, it is only sometime back the industry is facing a downturn. But one cannot deny that the real estate market of India is still unorganized, fairly fragmented, mostly characterized by small players with a local presence. Earlier, real estate developers were viewed with an element of doubt. Realty players and developers were quite often identified as people dealing with large amounts of unaccounted money and lacking transparency. One felt that they would use unscrupulous means to acquire a variety of regulatory approvals. The tremendous growth of the real estate sector and the change of belief of people can be attributed to various fundamental factors such as growing economy, growing business needs, etc. However, this boom in the Indian real estate sector is restricted to areas such as commercial office space, retail and housing sectors.
Currently, the sector is facing a major resource crunch. There is an obvious lack of qualified skilled people/workers in construction firms, PMC firms, etc. Along with this, the manpower shortage is the shortage of availability of relevant statistics which has raised an ambiguity in the minds of people as to how much construction activity is actually taking place and one can not actually gauge the demand and supply trends accurately. As a majority of developers are concerned about developing up-market and high-class apartments/villas and penthouses, the opportunities and issues of affordable, low cost housing in India have been ignored so far, as a result there is a dearth of low cost affordable units. Also, one of the negative versions of Indian real estate industry is that there is not much respect for sustainability so the concept of green buildings, proper waste disposal methods and the longevity of the product are often ignored.
Right now, the impact of depression in the US economy has impacted Indian real estate market so it is also witnessing a slowdown. Till now, this market was a booming industry and was in pace with the IT industry. The growth in the realty industry led to an increased demand for IT and commercial spaces.
Factors that led to growth in the industry:
The high net worth of individual investors created a very fast pace of demand in Indian real estate sector which has impacted its image to a large extent.
In the realty sector, the money was continuously coming (investments) from NRI as well as Private Equity funds and it help the well known developers and real estate players to grow their portfolio as well many small sized players could create a space for themselves in the market. It has provided a very high supply of real estate segments both in the residential property and in the commercial property space. SEZs also created immense good opportunities for investors as well as corporate to invest and get benefited from Indian real estate market.
The recent changes in the US market have created a slowdown in the global economy and in real estate sector is one of the worst-affected markets of India. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch has obviously affected the real estate market globally.
Also, most of the Indian players have their liquidity funded by both of these firms.
Measures taken to improve the situation:
These days, builders are mainly focusing of affordable housing as a lot of potential has been witnessed in this market. As the middle-class population dominates the Indian market, a lot of attention is being given to build projects for them. From major realtors like DLF, Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath etc to middle-level developers, all are coming up with a plethora of affordable houses.
This step has been taken to boost sales and demand as there is a dearth of buyers in the market due to the slowdown. In fact, a lot of builders are now offering all kinds of discounts and freebies to boost the slowing demand. Besides that, prices of properties and interest rates on home loans have also declined. The realty market these days is a buyer’s market and not a sellers market. So, all those looking for a home, grab this opportunity and buy your dream home now. And as they say there is always hope ahead so investing in property won’t be a bad option either

Sukhpreet Kaur writes on behalf of 99acres.com,which is an internet portal dedicated to meet every aspect of the consumers needs in the real estate industry. It is a forum where buyers, sellers and brokers can exchange information. At 99 acres, you can advertise a property,search for a property, browse through commercial property and residential property.