Mumbai: The Realty players said unchanged repo rate regime by the Reserve Bank of India works well for home loan borrowers as the floating retail loan rates, which are directly linked to external benchmark repo rates, have been at the lowest level in the last two decades. The continuation of this low interest rate regime supports the environment of affordability which has become the new hallmark of the housing market - during the pandemic, and even before.
‘’On the upside, the RBI did confirm that economic activity is reviving with the ebbing of Covid-19 in most states across the country. Also, the real GDP forecast for the FY 2021-22 remains at 9.5% in the wake of the vaccination drive that is in full swing in India. All this is positive for the residential market, which has strong correlations to the overall state of the economy,’’ said ANAROCK Property Consultants Chairman Anuj Puri.
Sunteck Realty CMD Kamal Khetan said, ‘’The real estate industry is making a recovery across many markets. With home loans still remaining at bottom levels, we believe the buying activity will soon be accelerated by those who have not used this favourable scenario to their advantage yet.”
Poddar Housing and Development MD Rohit Poddar said although, more efforts are needed to restore the supply-demand balance in the Real estate and infra sectors, continuation of lowest lending rates will ensure that businesses get more windows to cope up with the pandemic related challenges. ‘’However, we are evidently in a much better place compared to the past quarters. Nevertheless, we still need to be more cautious on the possibility of the third covid wave and its overall impact on the consumption,” he added.
Further, Savills India CEO Anurag Mathur said for real estate the situation on the lending front remains unchanged but recent stamp duty cuts in key states and historically low EMIs for home loans should continue to help the residential housing segment.
