mumbai flats

Did you get an amazing discount on booking a new flat? Before rejoicing, complete a few checks.

Real estate experts say many developers have increased the super built-up area by 60-70%. Which simply means that if you are buying a 1,000 sq ft apartment, yourcarpet area will only be 40-30%. So, you are not actually paying anything less. Developers simply reduce the carpet area and increase the super built-up space and lure home buyers with attractive discounts.

For beginners, carpet area is the livable part, the wall-to-wall area that can be carpeted while super built-up is the non-livable area like the lobby, lift space, flower beds, swimming pool, staircases etc. Since you pay for the super built-up area, discounts actually carry no meaning.

The real-estate jargoncalls it ‘loading’. In effect, it means that if you are buying a 1,000 sq ft apartment, your carpet area will only be 40-30%. Therefore, although you get a discount for your carpet area, since you are paying for the entire 1,000 sq ft, you don’t save anything with the discount. Earlier in Mumbai, there was only 20-30% loading.

According to Pankaj Kapoor, MD of property research firm Liases and Foras, , said that the super built-up concept is deceptive wherein buyers are literally squeezed. He appeals to buyers to first check the local body approved plan of the building and ask for carpet area only. Another property expert, Ajay Chaturvedi says, “Besides increasing super built-up areas, most developers also reduce the height of the ceiling. As per development control rules, the ideal ceiling height should be 11 ft, however, developers are limiting it between 9 and 9.3 ft,”.

Manohar Shroff, general secretary, Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry,said that since ‘super built-up’ is a very technical term, he appeals to developers to sell property on the basis of the carpet area. In super built-up, the rates look low.

Even Cidco was observed to be selling apartments with almost 65% loading. If a government body like Cidco does not hesitate in cheating buyers, properties advertised by private builders cannot be guaranteed at all. Home buyers only have to exercise caution before getting tempted with the striking discounts offered by developers.

Image credits : DNA

In Maharashtra, major land records reform is about to come as State Government of Maharashtra is set to do the geo-mapping and geo-referencing of urban properties and it will help the potential buyers and investors to keep themselves away from being cheated, reduce litigations and ease property transactions. Government will not map the properties on just papers of the property cards but also it will be in terms of geographical co-ordinates through which you can see the property with the help of Google maps. It will help the state governments to move to a clear and guaranteed title of land ownership in all over state.

The problem come in existence when government found that there is existence of multiple land registers such as; department of land registration, department of land records, municipal bodies and stamps whose data bases are not linked with each other. The land prices are shooting up in the sky and due to that most of the persons are trying to cheat the property buyers in transactions. However; the major drawback of the present system is that as a land owner all you need to provide the papers of land with presumptive title of the land without any guarantee of the ownership for that specific land. Whereas; the proposed new system will make the whole process easier for home buyers, small investors, large investors or industries by guaranteeing clear land title. With the help of new system it will be much easier to purchase a land without the help of experts or middleman because you will not need them to check the land records and land title as with the help of map you will be able to check flats or apartments title b yourself. According to Sambhajirao Kadu Patil, Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records, “This new system will reduce the cases in which land being sold to multiple parties. We will digitize and restructured all the property cards and they will be available on our website. We are doing mutations of land records, which will be available on our website, so if there will be any transaction at the sub-registrar’s office, it will be automatically recorded here”. The more he added that currently, there are 55 lakh property cards in all over Maharashtra.

According to Kadu Patil, “This is ultimate vision and concept to stop the cheaters by linking property records and municipal records in all the different departments. The more he added that currently we had a record of horizontal properties as well as records of vertical properties, which was constructed on them for the sales to other but they were not captured in those records, but these details are existed in the civic bodies for the purpose of assessment”. However; horizontal properties includes land and vertical properties include flats. Currently all the departments are working to bridge the gap and its big challenge, but we are working on that. The main concern is that whenever people purchase property or any other land, they just want to ensure the entry in the land records, but still there is no scientific geo-referencing of the site is available. And due to that now we are trying to capture the geographical co-ordinates of those properties such as; longitude and latitude on the property cards with an aim to tag them with universal co-ordinates, said one of the Senior Official from the department. The more he added that, We will examine and try to do this on the property cards because it will add the element of uniqueness in each and every property and property buyers or investors will be able to geo-reference as compared to the present system which is misleading enough to property buyers or investors.

According to officials, if property has not been measured properly, so its easy to sold them multiple parties or if plot has been sub-divided in different parts, so there is confusion on the sale and purchase. There will be no mapping of the individual plots or sub-divisions, until owner registered them because it can complicate the whole process. The geo-referencing of the property make it possible for individual apartments and flats to be mapped out with the details of transactions, sales and purchase.

Social Media Tool

When Aditya Mishra, the CFO of one of the multinational firm in Gurgaon, checks for WhatsApp Group messages where more than 100 Unitech home buyers were waiting for the delivery for luxury villas however; deadline ends before three years. Now Group is planning to take the legal action after the protest at projects site which is Alder Grove at Nirvana Country 2 in Gurgaon. After many meetings with Unitech executives and mails communication, company promoters are not able to settle things up.
Approx. 20 buyers have filled the case with NCDRC (National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission) and this group has Facebook fan page, WhatsApp Group, Group on Google and a presence on Twitter. Now angry buyers are taking the action against builders who is delaying the delivery of apartments and villas. However; the use of social networks are making the builders little panic as buyers are discussing the legal option and other ways to get compensations. Apart from that the spokesman from Unitech stated that there are several factors which are beyond the control of company and it resulted in the delays.
According to Liases Foras, which is property research firm, more than 8.5 lakh apartments launched between the period of 2008 and 2011ahve been delayed by more than one year whereas; in Delhi/NCR more than 1.7 lakh apartments are delayed by more than 48 months however; in Mumbai the number of flats are 82,000, which are delayed by more than 4 years. Apart from that builder are saying that there are various reasons for delaying the delivery such as; labour shortage, multiple approvals, lack of funds and more. In 2011, the Competition Commission of India was acting on the complaints against DLF filled by apartment owners and fined the company with Rs 630 crore for abusing its dominant reputation and position in the Gurgoan region. Before few weeks NCDRC asked Unitech to pay compensation to buyers at 12 per cent per annum for delays by overruling the agreement between builder-buyer which was offering 1.8 per cent.
Effect of Unity:
Now buyers are finding themselves in the comfort zone. When HDIL (Housing Development & Infrastructure Ltd) asked the buyers to pay more for Kurla project in Mumbai, so they fought back against developer and choose to go out of court settlement for low amount. In one of the project of Indiabulls Greens, which is in Panvel, buyer’s group state that the delivery of first phase was in 2012-13, but now it will be ready by 2017 and also there is change in project layout. Dev Purohit, who is 27-year-old textile exporter, stated that we are in process to register our group and after that we will move to CCI against Indiabulls Real Estate. Whereas; according to the official statement of Indiabulls Real Estate, we are delivering all the projects at time and for Panvel Greens project the scheduled delivery date is July 2016 as per agreement. Apart from that we have provided an option to buyers to exit with 12 per cent interest benefit.

Housing.com buys online discussion forum IREF

Recently, a real estate portal Housing.com buys online discussion forum IREF (Indian Real Estate Forum) with a aim to provide and improve the content which can help the real estate investors and home buyers to make choices which and retain or attract the first time buyers in the retail real estate market.

This Mumbai-based real estate portal is financially backed by Japan’s SoftBank and after the deal it is expected that Housing.com will pay Rs 8 crore to acquire Indian Real Estate Forum that have a base of more than 1.5 lakh active users. Apart from that the first two acquisitions of company is expected to close in next one to two months.

In December 2014, Housing.com has  received a funding of about $ 90 million or Rs 560 crore from Japan’s SoftBank and after that they has set apart a corpus of Rs 200 crore for acquisitions. According to the officials of Housing.com, after the acquisition IREF will function  independently under the charge of Ravish Naresh who is a cofounder at Housing.com.

The forum is well known real estate platform for its unbiased and transparent project information’s, developers information’s, localities information’s, agents or brokers information’s, and plots information’s. According to officials of Housing.com we are in the last stage to acquire PropEquity and the deal is of Rs. 80 crore, but executive of PropEquity are saying that they have declined the deal.

While coming to desired changes in IREF, it is expected that there will be few changes in the section of IREF as Housing.com is planning to answer each and every query related to the builders, projects, brokers and agents. Whereas;, the Housing.com also planning to buy PropEquity, so that it can attract more and more business users as it is well known fact that PropEquity is a real estate data it its most of the clients are PE developers,investors and financial services who love to spot the market trends to generate the insights about real estate market.

New Real Estate Regulatory Bill have reasons to enjoy end users and investors

Now with new Real Estate Regulatory Bill, which is supposed to approve in current meetings by the Union Cabinet, end users and investors have several reasons to enjoy and feel confident about property investment matters, when it comes to concern on change in project layout and delay in delivery layout among others. Real estate developers are also expected to cash the benefit with this well improved accountability and transparency as it will help them to flow the institutional funds into real estate sector.

It is expected that the number of issues between real estate developers and home buyers because of delay in project will come down as this Real Estate Regulatory Bill making it mandatory for all the real estate builders to maintain more than 50 per cent of customer advances in an account which will be known as escrow account within the 15 days of time, once they will receive the money from home buyers. However some of the real estate experts are viewing the minimum balance to maintain the proper balance in an escrow account to reduce by 50 per cent.

As per the statement Chairman & Country Head of JLL India ; Anuj Puri, “The 50 per cent mandate will be able to put the enough restriction on real estate developers to divert different funds to ensure the better completion records, whereas; the funds diversion is not only reason for delay in any real estate project completion and apart from that Real Estate Regulatory Bill need to cover the civic authorities and government bodies too. Puri more added that, this new amended Bill will have very positive affect for introducing the better governance, timely management and transparency, but non-inclusion of government authorities are the major contributors to slow down the approval processes, however they remain issue need to be addressed.
All consumers need to remember that the entire regulator will take at-least one year to turn it into reality. On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet had clear the bill, and it will become an Act once it will get tabled and approved in the current season of Parliament. For more transparency and better governance, state need to set-up the regulatory bodies with new bill while setting up a web-based online registration facility for the period of one year to set-up the governing bodies. Real estate developers are agree with current bill as it is introduced to help the transparency and better governance in real estate sector.

After that regulator will provide a log-in ID for every project, without which builder will not be able to sale the flats of apartments in the project. However the regulator should have to scrutinize all the legal documents for project, so that it can cancel the registration if they will find that project documents are not in the proper order.

Better transparency, government policy and accountability will provide the fair opportunity to home buyers and developers both and it will also help the real estate developers to gain the access to collect the funds however it will also help to lower down the property prices till certain extent. As per the statement of Shishir Baijal who is CMD of Knight Frank India, it is expected that it will enhance the credibility in real estate sector and developers as most of the developers will be in situation to borrow funds at better interest rate, which will help them to rationalize property prices in coming months.

The penal of provisions has proposed law, which will add the payment of 10 per cent of project cost for non-registration as well as payment of additional 10 per cent of project cost which will be complied for the duration of three to four years. If the disclosure of information will be wrong or it will not in the complying with the disclosures and other essential requirements and payment of 5 per cent of project cost will be imposed. The Real Estate Regulatory Bill provides the regulatory authorities to come in power so that they can cancel the project registration in certain cases of persistent violations and they will also have a power to decide on further course of action in reference to the completion of all real estate projects.

Extra FSI can hit the Redevelopment work

Recently, the proposal of Maharashtra government to put extra charge on builders more for the extra 0.33 floor space index (FSI) given for housing projects is likely to hit redevelopment work in Mumbai‘s suburbs. The Maharashtra government has increased the ready reckoner rates by an average 15% every year since 2008 and now government is now considering linking the premium to be paid by real estate developers for the 0.33 extra FSI to ready reckoner rates of 2015 as against current base of 2008 rates.

Effect of an extra FSI:

If this proposal will be accepted, so according to real estate experts, so real estate developers may not find smaller redevelopment projects in Maharashtra viable because of the financial outgo, as the base rate for calculation of premium will increase by almost 100 per cent. This move will push up the costs for home buyers in Mumbai’s suburbs. If central government is serious about project “Housing for All” or to make homes affordable than they need to take the extra measures as most of the announced aim to boost the government’s revenue, but these, including the latest one, will impact home buyers in terms of prices and lower areas offered to existing owners in redevelopment projects.”

In some of the localities and zones, ready reckoner rates have been revised upward by more than 30 per cent to 40 per cent on yearly basis. For the year 2015, revision in rates is popular in suburbs such as Malad, Chembur, Goregaon, Borivali, Ghatkopar and Vikhroli have been increased by 30 per cent to 40 percent. It is the same for plush residential localities such as Worli and areas near Bandra-Kurla Complex. In a sluggish real estate market where prices are weakening, a rise in cost for real estate developers is bound to hit their margins. This is expected to see low number of real estate developers coming forward for smaller redevelopment affordable residential as well as commercial projects in the suburbs.

As per the Nayan Bheda, CMD of Neptune Group, “All the equations in real estate market will change as costing itself will double with this proposal. Redevelopment projects in suburbs like Borivali, Kandivali, Mulund, Bhandup, Kanjurmarg and Dahisar will be hit severely as the cost will move up without much room for recovering it through any price hike”.  Once the proposal is notified, real estate developers are likely to renegotiate on the old redevelopment project agreements as construction is yet to start for them, because most of the real estate builders will be interested in reducing the compensatory benefits, including extra space for tenants.

In 2001, the state government of Maharashtra had decided to grant 0.33 additional FSI to real estate projects in the suburbs and extended suburbs of Greater Mumbai and central Mumbai by sanctioning an amendment to the Development Control Regulations for Greater Mumbai, 1991. As per the Vvikas Aroraa, Director, Marketing & sales, Runwal Group, “The costing is growing up and it will have two possible ramifications. Either home-buyer will have to pay more, which looks unlikely given the current market scenario, or developers’ margins will suffer whereas; other industries in real estate market is assessed on its net realization and profitability , and based on that redevelopment projects in suburbs may not see many takers”.

It is expected that this will make an impact as additional space to be shared with existing tenants. it is expected that this move will help to low the price of housing on the back of augmented supply in the suburbs. The premium accrued to the state government and the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai from this additional 0.33 FSI was to be used on upgrade the city’s infrastructure. The additional FSI could be availed of on payment of premium.

Property prices in Mumbai

According to few reports, property prices will remain high in certain market conditions, but they will not increase any more. The value of under construction property which is unsold in real estate inventory in Mumbai can be anything as its R 53,400 crore for a clutch of listed firms and it presents that consumer confidence isn’t exactly soaring. What can be worse with an additional R36,800 crore of launches in the area of 20.4 million sq ft, which is more than half of south central part of the city and it can put the prices of real estate industry under pressure.

According to Niranjan Hiranandani, co-founder of Hiranandani Developers, in real estate market pricing strategy is now crucial since only relatively affordable projects are able to find takers whereas; high end properties in the central and southern parts of the city aren’t seeing any specific interest. Ghulam Zia Executive Director of  Knight Frank India, stated that first-time home buyers continued to sit on the fence however in recent budget there are no incentives for home buyers the market will get revitalized only once the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) begins to cut interest rates.

Analysis of Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE):

According to analysis of Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE) the numbers are clearly indicating that says land buying has dropped and prices are not going so up as only there are four or five developers have the capacity to buy land worth more than $200 million. The analysis showed that Oberoi Realty, Peninsula Land, Sunteck Realty, Godrej Properties, HDIL, DB Realty and Indiabulls real estate are among those property developers who are sitting on high inventories and major part of those inventories belongs from Lower Parel, Worli, south and central pockets of Mumbai and Prabhadevi.

Ambar Maheshwari, CEO of Indiabulls Group also believes that there is a glut at the premium and high ends of the real estate market. The more he added that a recovery is unlikely in areas like Lower Parel and Prabhadevi unless developers build smaller apartments that result in some kind of rationalization in prices. In present Oberoi Realty is targeting on the sales of unsold inventory and they are expecting to sale it in next 12 months, but KIE expects the company will only be able to sell R8,500 crore worth of residences in the next 30 months. As per the data issued by the Director General of Mumbai, in the first 11 months of 2014, property registrations fell 2.4 per cent.

As per few reports developers are planning to offer discount after definitive interest from buyers and channel checks suggest that large number of units are being sold in the 20:80 schemes which will be without a bank debt burden to and trip abroad for designing apartments however discounts are becoming more evident as real estate developers are also offering absolute discounts to investors and as well as end buyers now. These measures are clearly failing to impress and attract new buyers. In certain real estate market, in certain markets developers are selling 20-30 units in a month while in others they could be selling in 2 to 6 a month. Amit Bhagat, who is CEO & MD, ASK Property, stated that the demand was tepid in the luxury space so any developer who was leveraged might be under pressure.

Union Budget 2015-16

It is the demand of real estate developers in upcoming Budget to revive the tax structures and lower interest rates for the home buyers as home is there ultimate need. Apart from to seek for better infrastructure status for housing, Getamber Anand, the Elected President of CREDAI stated in real estate press conference organized by RICS that “The government should provide some fiscal incentives to the real estate developers to build affordable housing.”  NAREDCO Chairman Naveen Raheja stated that: “There should be some real stimulus for the affordable home buyers in form of lower interest rates.” The more he added that we wish this budget will provide better infrastructure status to housing if not the entire real estate”. On the same occasion, CBRE South Asia Chairman and Managing Director Anshuman Magazine stated that infrastructure development and low cost funding should be key for the revival of the real estate sector.

CEO Embassy Office Parks, Michael Holland demanded that “Now it’s perfect time when central government should provide some clarification on tax treatment of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), particularly on Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) because we all know that real estate sales are down and it can put the realty market in worst post-global financial crisis. It means that we are at the bottom, it can only go up from here as sales are not happening so this is good opportunity for buyers to buy home”. Commenting on the need to incentivize the affordable housing segment, Sachin Sandhir RICS Global’s Managing Director – Emerging Business & MD – South Asia said: “Despite the inherent fundamentals of the realty market, things have slowed down in recent times and we must introspect as an industry the reasons why this has happened, and address the issues. The core issue of increasing affordability and supply of housing should be addressed.”

In September 2014, SEBI, which is market regulator, had notified that there are few norms for listing of new business trust structure under REITs and they would help to attract more funds in a transparent manner into the realty sector.These norms were notified when Finance Minister, had provided the REITs ‘pass through’ status for the purpose of taxation in the last year’s budget, Vineet Relia, MD of SARE Homes stated that in order to ‘Make housing for all a Reality’ central government should look into relaxation of taxes, and lower interest rates with easy process of financing for the developers and build adequate infrastructure”.

On Wednesday, cabinet defers on the approval of Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Bill, which is committed to ensure consumer protection and to establish regulatory bodies at Centre and states for transparent and ethical business practices in country’s real estate sector. As per sources, the housing ministry has been asked to review the real estate bill explore that how it can be more consumer-friendly and to have better provisions for promotion of affordable housing.

Country’s Real Estate Sector

In review low cost housing and roof have been identified as a focus area by central government and it has promised the housing for all by 2022. Low-cost housing and roof to all have been identified as a focus area by the Narendra Modi government and it has promised shelter to all by 2022. TOI has learnt that there was a suggestion and strong argument during the Cabinet meeting that the provisions relating to Centre-state issues need to be made clearer in the bill. In current session of Parliament, central government has included the bill as one of the legislations for passage.

Recommendations in Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Bill:

The real estate bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in August 2014 and referred to the parliamentary standing committee for modifications and later committee had made several recommendations particularly in favor of consumers and greater check on unscrupulous developers, the housing ministry has rejected most of them. According to committee there are also several provisions in the revised bill with a single aim to protect the consumer’s interest. This has reference to recent cases in Noida where a developer had changed plans and built towers to increase economic viability without taking buyers into confidence. The real estate bill also included that the condition prohibits a developer to change the plan in a project unless 2/3rd of the allottees have concurred for such change.

As per new recommendations, now it will include checking the antecedents of project promoters before their registration is done and ensure that all real estate developers who have defaulted in two earlier cases be blacklisted. But later housing ministry has ministry rejected this by arguing that this a provision will work as a deterrent for the sector. The panel of committee had also recommended all real estate agents involved in sale of secondary market projects also need to be regulated through real estate bill. But this was not accepted. Similarly, the panel also suggested that promoters be made to enclose names of contractors, architects and structural engineers, which were also turned down.

Earlier housing ministry have allowed to builder to divert up to 50% of buyers’ investment in case of special projects to other real estate projects which are under criticism. But the original real estate bill had mandated the developer to put more than 70 per cent of the buyers’ investment to an escrow account to be used only for construction of that project.

Real estate investment

In present location issue is keeping the buyers away; but better ROI, an incentive, benefits of tax breaks are still attracting the investors as well as end users towards the real estate market. In India, affordable segment are finding buyers but most are investors not those who are planning to stay in those homes because of the location issue as the home is located too far away from offices and have little support infrastructure, analysts and trade experts said. Peoples are making the attempt to invest in real estate sector because government have increase the accessibility of housing through tax breaks and other incentives or benefits, which are therefore going towards those more interested in turning a profit.

Almost 50 per cent of the total housing stock of 293 million sq. ft sold in the last fiscal year, which was ended on March 2014 and the prices of those property was less than Rs.50 lakh, as per the data of real estate research firm Liases Foras. Flats which cost Rs.25-50 lakh accounted for 37 per cent of the total housing stock sold in the same period, while those below Rs.25 lakh had a 13 per cent share. Mumbai is the city which known for its high property prices as well as ROI, accounted for 13 per cent of the sale of houses priced below Rs.25 lakh and 28 per cent of houses in the Rs.25-50 lakh range. According to Pankaj Kapoor, The Managing Director of Liases Foras, “Most new launches in the last three quarters are in the affordable category”. The more he added that the rise in sales in part to state government regulations which have been favorable for both real estate developers and buyers in the relatively more affordable segment.

In December 2014, the Apex Bank (Reserve Bank of India) allowed real estate developers and housing finance companies to raise up-to $1 billion through external commercial borrowings to promote housing projects, which also referred to as low-cost because they are cheaper than more upscale properties. The budget of 2013, proposed a Rs.2.5 lakh deduction on the total taxable income on home loans of less than Rs.25 lakh, applicable to loans from banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). Such housing projects are profitable business for real estate developers as in Mumbai, they provides an internal rate of return (IRR) of 45 per cent with gross margin of 24 per cent. According to report of Monitor Deloitte in 2010, a consulting firm, “Most of the flats are being bought by investors rather than genuine low-income end-users despite the low prices and interest rates, since these flats are being built in far-flung places with poor connectivity and social infrastructure, real estate and analysts”.

For example, If person buys such a home in Karjat, which is one of the last stops on Mumbai’s suburban Central line,  will have to travel about 85 km if his/her office is in the central business district of Nariman Point. That’s about two hours by train each way. According to Kapoor, “Trans Harbour Link have easy connectivity between the the mainland and the island city and provided a much-needed boost for affordable housing”. The Trans Harbour Link have 22 km road across the sea which will connect the island city and Navi Mumbai. It is expected that, Trans Harbour Link will be operational by 2018-19. Now investors are looking to it as excellent opportunity as it has connectivity and support of infrastructure. According to Om Ahuja, the chief executive, “Most projects are not affordable in terms of living and these projects are bought by investors who park their money. If it is a wrong product, their investment gets stuck”.

According to Brotin Banerjee, MD and CEO of  Tata Housing, “Tata Housing sells these homes under two different national banners; Shubh Griha (Rs.4-13 lakh) and New Haven (Rs.25-40 lakh). It plans to launch more affordable projects across different consumer segments in Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Bhubaneswar and Kolkata.” VBHC (Value and Budget Housing Corp.), has many affordable housing projects, which are in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and two in Bangalore. It’s planning to launch one more in Delhi and Mumbai in the next few months, according to Vivin Mathew, chief executive, western region. On March 2014, GPL (Mumbai-based Godrej Properties Ltd), the realty arm of the Godrej group, launched an affordable housing scheme at its Godrej Garden City township project in Ahmedabad. In real estate market some of the real estate developers are using finance and marketing techniques to attract genuine home buyers or investors in the Rs.6-25 lakh range.

Poddar Developers Ltd, a Mumbai based real estate developer has 25 per cent of the apartments in one of its project to families availing loans from NBFCs such as Gruh Finance Ltd, Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Ltd and Muthoot Fincorp Ltd. NBFCs offer rates that are slightly higher than that of commercial banks, but have an easier documentation process, making it a better option for low-income borrowers. According to Rohit Poddar, MD of Poddar Developers Ltd., “We don’t sell more than one flat to a single buyer. We have a 75:25 mix of actual home buyers and investors”. In last two years, Poddar Developers has sold more than 2,500 apartments in Badlapur in Thane district and Karjat in Raigad district, in the range of Rs.3.5-12 lakh each. Recently they have launched the similar project at Atgaon in Thane and is planning 40,000 sq. ft of land by the end of this financial year.

According to Rashmi Housing Pvt. Ltd, “It’s also giving a loan to home buyers without interest to drum up interest in homes that cost below Rs.25 lakh. According to Yogesh Bosmiya, Director of Rashmi Housing, “Around 30 per cent of our home buyers or invetors they are availing this loan facility and we are mostly getting the end users”. Rashmi Housing Pvt. Ltd, said that they has sold more than 3,000 units in the Mira-Bhayander area of  Thane district since 1999 and is developing another 4,000 units in the same area. Bosmiya said the profit margin is 20-25 per cent. Whereas; some of the real estate developers are constructing the hospitals and schools to improve the existing public schools, to create social infrastructure in a bid to attract families.