CREDAI, the apex body of real estate sector released two joint reports with leading IPCs, JLL and Cushman & Wakefield at the CREDAI NATCON 2018, its 18th annual international convention held from 02nd – 04th August, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. The two reports unveiled at CREDAI NATCON 2018 were a testimony to the unprecedented growth displayed by the real estate industry in India. The CREDAI-JLL report pointed at significant increase in sales velocity, recording a rise of 25% y-o-y with sales at over 64,000 units while another report unveiled at NATCON by CREDAI – Cushman & Wakefield displayed heightened PE investment of INR 10,080 crores in Q2, 2018.
NATCON 2018 saw over 1000 member developers and experts from the real estate sector, senior professionals from the financial world and ancillary industries participated in the three-day long convention aimed at facilitating best practices and learning, stressing on the importance of real estate as one of the building blocks of a nation’s economy. The participants included key capital market players from India and around the world, leading companies and Government officials. CREDAI also put forth robust demands for incentivizing developers to participate in affordable housing to continue the growth momentum. Some of the demands were enabling tax benefits to projects registered prior to 1st June, 2016, reducing land area utilization to 50%, a 12% GST with ITC and 2/3rd land rebate in metro cities, Development Rights (DR) in Joint Development Agreement (JDA), redevelopment agreements and Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) exempt; Housing loan interest deduction against ‘Rental Income’ for self-occupied property increased to Rs. 5,00,000 for realising the Government of India’s vision of “Housing For All”.
According to CREDAI-JLL Report, the demands aimed at providing further impetus to the growth of the real estate sector amidst the positive trends on investments and residential housing. The growth witnessed in H1 2018 can be attributed to two large factors, firstly returning buyers’ confidence on account of implementation of RERA in most states and stable capital values that have started to show an upward bias. The general consensus amongst the buyers has been that the markets have bottomed out and capital values are now expected to move northward. These two factors, have pushed many fence sitters and new home buyers to take the purchase decision. This is despite the fact that the RBI has increase its REPO rate in the third monetary policy making borrowing for home loans dearer.
