Non-resident Indian (NRI) investments in the Indian real estate sector has seen a major spike in the current festive season, clocking up to 30 percent jump in residential property purchases by Gulf-based expat Indians in larger cities such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and India’s IT capital Bengaluru, industry insiders said.
Luxury properties have emerged as a hot favourite with NRIs this season as the depreciating rupee value, coupled with attractive developer discounts, offer greater buying power.
“The festive season of 2022 was a period of intense and focused real estate investment by NRIs, with residential projects by large and listed developers seeing the most traction,” Shajai Jacob, chief executive officer – GCC, Anarock Group, a leading real estate consultancy in India and GCC, told Arabian Business.
“NRIs were, by and large, undeterred by the marginal price increases that have taken place in high quality projects as they perceived the value of investing in such assets,” Jacob said.
Senior executives at developers and real estate broking firms said while larger cities witnessed as much as 30 percent jump this season vis-à-vis the previous one, Tier 2 and 3 cities saw an increase of 15-20 percent.
Some of the Tier 2 Southern Indian cities such as Kochi in Kerala and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu even saw a higher jump in NRI investments this time around at 22-25 percent, they said.
Jacob said NRIs from the Gulf region continue to be the largest expat group investing in real estate in India.
“This trend not only remains unchanged, but in fact saw a ramping up this time around, particularly in the housing sector,” he said.
Industry insiders said the current season also saw an increased interest in purchasing bigger homes by expat Indians.
“There has been a growing demand for larger configuration homes of 3 and 4-bedroom houses,” an executive with a housing portal said.
Offers such as waiver of stamp duty, registration charges and premium charges for higher floors, besides additional packages such modular kitchens were among the incentives offered by several developers which drew large NRI interest in buying bigger housing units.
An increased NRI interest in luxury homes was also seen this festive season, with the preferred price range being $110,000 – $304,160 (INR 9 million-25 million).
IT-driven cities of Bengaluru and Pune have seen attracting a lot of NRI demand in the current festive season, followed by cities like Gurugram and Noida in the Delhi –NCR (national capital region).
Mumbai, however, still remains a major attraction for the wealthier NRI luxury home buyers.
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