Funding will happen when fundamentals get corrected in luxury housing

With increasing uncertainty on Covid 19, going forward people are going to spend more and more time at home and so they need more amenities, more completeness within their house, says Amit Goyal, CEO – India, Sotheby’s International Realty. 

“I think post-COVID things are going to be a big different the way people live, they way people work-out, do their activities, entertainment, etc. are all going to see a huge change”, said Goyal. He was speaking at Realty Webseries, a Realty & More and ICCPL initiative. The topic of the seventh edition of Realty Webseries was “Future of Luxury Housing Post COVID 19”. The panelists gave varied definitions of what luxury housing means.  

Yukti Nagpal, Director, Gulshan said luxury is highly subjective to the person who is buying it, what is a luxury for one, may not be the same for another. “Some people prefer luxury to be gold and embellishment, some prefer luxury to be a good location, while for others health, wellness is the biggest luxury for today and the rest of their life’, said Nagpal.

Experion Senior ED, Sales & Marketing, Ananta Raghuvanshi said luxury has so many different components and can be played around within those components. “But I doubt if the cities or whether the population which is going for luxury is going to change anyway, so demographics I don’t think is going to change any which ways”, added Raghuvanshi.

Another panelist at the event, Karan Kumar, CMO, DLF Ltd said that the definition of luxury itself has to change and evolve a little bit after the pandemic because now people will expect more luxury in across all segments that they buy a product in.  “So whether it is sub Rs 3 crore of Rs 5 crore or Rs 20 crore, the expectation on luxury is going to increase”, said Kumar.

Nayan Raheja, Director, Raheja Group had a different perspective on luxury. “I don’t want to be so subjective in luxury, I would say luxury in any micro market should count among the top 5 most expensive per square feet offerings, which is a simpler way to define it”, said Raheja.

On the issue of funding in luxury housing, Vikas Wadhawan, Group CFO, Housing.com, PropTiger.com, Makaan.com said that a lot of equity is expected to flow in, provided some of the basic fundamentals get corrected in the segment. “Faster delivery of the projects, single window clearance to reduce the cost, etc. are the fundamentals to be corrected to get the investors’ confidence in lending further to the segment”, added Wadhawan.

Mona Jalota, Founder, Krypton Global Investments said luxury housing is good to put money if it is for self-use, but in India it cannot be compared to the kind of returns that can be generated it is put in UK or US and there are so many alternative sectors in real estate where one can invest and get returns. “I don’t think it makes sense to put money in luxury if the intent is to lease those out and get some income from it”, said Jalota.