Banking and Finance
Indian Real Estate is on its way to donning the image of an organized industry with global standards, as fragmentation, disorganization, poor governance and inefficient infrastructure; take a backseat. Much of the positive zing lies in the significant rise in investment, not only from within India but from offshore as well. The last couple of years have been a clincher in terms of the increasing interest shown by international property consultants, developers and commercial banks in investing in Real Estate in India.
The expansion in terms of space and range encompasses residential, commercial, infrastructure and logistics. With the retail boom poised for huge growth, a good chunk of new projects are in the Commercial Real Estate space. The residential sector commands its own share. With the growth in living standards amongst the average Indian, and increase in disposable income, new apartments are selling like hot cakes. It is not a wonder, then that the total investment required in the tenth plan period, has been estimated at Rs 1,108,800 crore approximately.
Most of the financial institutions offer home loans to both Indian and NRI customers at floating and fixed rate of interest or blended ones and have customized packages for the purposes of constructing/ buying a new house, vacant plot or extension and even home improvement. Loans for non-residential premises, home equity and top-up/personal loans are also available.
Moreover, a person looking for a housing loan can avail himself of life insurance covers, home protection insurance, and other privileges related to banking facilities.
With the host of Real Estate Funds from Financial Institutions, financial support from the Banks and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs) that have access to low cost retail funds and refinance given by National Housing Board at competitive rates, more investors are willing to pledge their assets to the realty sector. Nevertheless, the alertness on the part of the consumer seeking a housing loan should be geared towards increasing the loan eligibility, getting the valuation of the property done and keeping photocopies of the title document.
Banks and HFCs are entering or seeking to enter into tie-ups with builders/development authorities/ private developersin order to improve the credit delivery system and devise competitive pricing and aggressive strategy. Foreign banks are also able to woo retail customers by fine-tuning their housing loans.
The Annual Monetary and Credit Policy Statement for the Year 2007 has presented the finding that the growth in activity in financing, insurance, real estate and business services stood at 11.1%, as compared to 10.9 % in 2005-06. This definitely can be a positive concluding note as we look forward to enthusiastic development in Finance and Banking in the year 2007.
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