Non-resident Indians (NRIs) are showing a growing appetite for property acquisition in India in the current festive season, with industry players expecting a 20 percent increase in home buying by expat Indians in in Q3.
“Going by the early trend, it certainly looks like festive season 2019 will be a marked contrast to last year’s, and we are seeing a potential increase in purchase by at least 20 percent in this quarter,” Shajai Jacob, CEO-GCC, Anarock Property Consultants, told Arabian Business.
“NRIs also seem to be responding positively to the various Government-induced stimuli announced in quick succession recently, leading to their added confidence in investing in the property market,” he added.
Gulf-based NRIs are the major expat Indian groups who are investing to acquire real estate assets back home. This is because of the fact that they will have to return to their homeland sooner or later, in the absence of provisions for gaining permanent residency status for a vast majority of them in Middle East countries.
NRIs buying
Officials with some of the leading Indian real estate companies also supported the early trend of a rising interest by NRIs in bookings apartments in their projects.
“There is definitely a good response from NRIs this season by way of increase in enquiries, and also actual bookings,” the spokesperson of DLF, a leading Indian real estate company, has said.
Industry sources said attractive price discounts and other freebies by many developers, coupled with a relatively weak rupee are also driving the increased interest by NRIs in investing in residential housing sector in the current festive season.
Indian government has recently announced several measures including a relaxation of guidelines for buying affordable housing by foreign buyers and lowering of interest rate on housing building advances.
Indian finance minister has also announced a special window of $2.82 billion (Rs 200 billion) funding for housing projects in the affordable and middle-income segments as part of its efforts to pump in additional liquidity to the housing sector.
Industry analysts said NRIs will certainly benefit from these measures as more affordable and mid-income housing options will become available over the short-to-medium term.
As per data compiled at Anarock, more than 55 percent of property purchases by NRIs in FY 2020 have been in the affordable (sub $70,000) and mid-income (between $70,000 and $141,000) price categories.
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