"In every city, there should be surplus housing"
Indian real estate, especially the residential segment, is battered. Homebuyers have been taken for a ride by builders who couldn't complete projects. This led to a trust deficit, and the subsequent enforcement of the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA), which is now forcing builders to change their operating models. Rajeev Talwar, CEO, DLF Ltd., and Chairman of the National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO), tells Business Today's Goutam Das about the changing landscape, why it is time to create excess supply in affordable housing, and how to go about it. Edited excepts:
We are hearing of green shoots in different parts of India for residential real estate. It is different in Noida, where we see homebuyers agitate. What led to this crisis?
Builders were concentrating on huge expansion before 2008. They were speculating, money was coming in easy. At that time, it was a sellers' market in Uttar Pradesh and Noida. Many thought they could leverage that money across. With the global meltdown in 2008/09 and the Indian slowdown, everyone had to abandon commercial development and go in for residential development. The execution capacity of the entire country came into question. Not only Noida, all over the country there were substantial delays in residential projects. By their nature, residential projects
