Affordable housing: Demand, entry of new developers, govt aid, urbanisation help India’s realty sector growth
Financial Express
Prashant Utreja
It is an established fact that the real estate industry is the heart that drives a country’s economic progress. A relatively new fact is that affordable housing is the oxygen that can keep the sector running. As suggested in the name, affordable housing generally refers to housing that is deemed reasonably priced for those with a household income at or below the median rated by the government-recognized housing affordability index. In India, which has the largest population of middle and low-income households in the world, affordable housing can be a key source of tax generation, employment, and increasing the spending power of consumers in the economy. For the real estate players, it is a tremendous business opportunity with a huge number of buyers but hardly any real estate developers. It would be a profitable scheme if an increasing number of developers shift the focus from deriving margins from a few high-end luxury projects to the voluminous demand for low-cost housing. Moreover, the cost of developing affordable housing is at least 25 per cent lower than high-end projects which again is an attractive proposition for the developers.
