New Delhi, Aug 19 (PTI): Only 23 housing projects comprising 7,620 units were launched during April-June quarter under the subvention scheme, which has been banned recently by the National Housing Bank (NHB), according to property consultant Anarock. Worried over frauds by builders, last month, the NHB asked housing finance companies (HFCs) to “desist” from offering loans under subvention scheme wherein real estate developers pay interest on behalf of home buyers for a certain period of time.
Generally, builders bear the interest till possession of flats so that homebuyers do not have to pay rent and their monthly installments together. After the NHB directive, industry body CREDAI demanded a rollback of this decision as it would affect housing demand as well as liquidity of developers.
“The ban on subvention schemes will doubtlessly contribute to the sector’s overall liquidity issues as players can no longer use them to attract customers. However, only a limited number of developers were affected by this move,” Anarock Chairman Anuj Puri said in a report. The NHB’s directive was not as crippling as was initially assumed, the consulting firm said.
As per the research report, out of the total 280 projects launched in the April-June quarter of 2019, only about 23 projects (or 8 per cent) were marketed under subvention schemes. These 23 projects comprised of 7,620 units about 11 per cent of the total 69,000 units launched in the quarter. “Our data also reveals that among the affected projects, those by larger players, strongly backed by financial lenders while offering such schemes, outnumbered projects by smaller developers,” Puri said.
In city-wise analysis, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has the maximum number of projects affected by the subvention scheme ban, with as many as 17 projects comprising 5,310 new units being launched under this plan. Bengaluru came a distant second with just four new housing projects being marketed with subvention schemes. Interestingly, both NCR and Pune had only one project each being sold under such schemes.
Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad had no new project launches offering subvention schemes. “With subvention schemes off the table, developers will have to get creative with differentiated unique selling points to market their projects and boost sales. There seems to be no relief from the protracted pain the market has been experiencing in recent years,” Anarock said.