DECEMBER 20198IN MY OPINIONDemonetization, RERA & GST have disrupted the real estate marketThe real estate industry was faced with two of the big-gest challenges in history, the Real Estate Regulation & Development Act (RERA) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Both these laws have driven the black market of real estate to become more transparent and process driven. RERA aims to regulate the sectors which are un-regulated and bring back strict checks on project delays and unfulfilled promises from developers. GST aims to rationalize the tax structure and bring uniformity in prices, which is expected to benefit both developers and people looking to buy new homes. The effects of these policy changes aim at long term benefits. Its true impact on the market is yet to be seen. Demonetization, on the other hand, has also driven high transparency which in turn has resulted in poor sales, challenges with heavy liquidity and a high number of unsold properties. These are some of the challenges that are now faced by a number of developers from the real estate sector which have given way to numerous un-used properties. Unused PropertiesDue to all this, there is just too much inventory laying idle. As the population in India steadily increases every day so does the demand for homes across the country. With a population touching 1.32 billion as of 2016, In-dia has a housing market that is raking in more demand and money each day. Unfortunately, people are find-ing it harder and harder to locate suitable living spaces and the demand for homes seems to be surpassing its supply greatly. In a recent article written by Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director of CBRE South Asia, it was cited that around 12 million completed houses were lying vacant and under-leveraged across urban India. Despite this unimaginable number, there is a huge gap between the demand for housing and the supply for them in India. In fact, the latest official economic survey stated a shortage of a whopping 20 million homes in India.On one hand, you see there is actually enough supply and on the other, you see the housing demands of the people of India are not met. There is a huge gap which somebody is not addressing. Having said that, we see huge potential and opportunities that lies at the core of the real estate industry. In an era of technology and ar-tificial intelligence, innovative tech-enabled businesses such as Nestaway, Oyo Rooms, YourOwnROOM are tak-ing advantage of this opportunity to identify underlever-aged property and service segments of the Indian popu-lation that are in real need for decent housing.Millennials happen to be one of the most underserved segments in India. We've observed over the years a huge inflow of migrant millennials moving to metros for a better standard of living and job opportunities. We see a great solution in putting the vast amount of underlev-eraged properties to good use by serving this demand for decent homes for millennial. These unsold properties are a great investment opportunity and should be developed or purchased immediately and sold or rented out to the people who are in real need of it. This is beginning to give way to new type of proper-ty and that is rentals. It's moved from your typical sav-ing of money to buy property to brokers to now online managed rentals. ONLINE MANAGED RENTALS AND WHY IT'S GAINING SIGNIFICANCE IN INDIA By Prabhat Kumar Tiwary, CEO & Founder, YourOwnROOMPrabhat is a Stanford Business Graduate with over 23 years of professional industry experience in leadership and management at technology enterprises and startups
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