Real estate players want more liquidity in the system

“If the situation doesn’t change, the real estate and construction sector will witness layoffs in the coming months. The government and the regulator need to infuse more liquidity to boost the economy and the realty sector in particular,” said Niranjan Hiranandani, MD, Hiranandani Constructions.

Doshi said there is immense potential for growth of the realty sector as the demand for housing in the country is over 2.7 million units and Mumbai itself contributes to 5 per cent of the total demand. A delegation of builders led by Rajnikant S Ajmera, president, Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) and managing director, Ajmera Group, was recently assured by the finance minister that banks will monitor every details of the sector and disburse the loans to the real estate companies as soon as possible.

“The sentiment is down everywhere in the world… my concern is that there are 250 other industries connected with the real estate sector which will be affected by this crisis and we are trying to rescue our sector out of this,” said Ajmera.

“The prices of residential properties have already come down by over 15-20 per cent in some areas in the last one month. We are expecting that major metro cities will see an over 30 per cent residential price fall in the next few weeks,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman & Country Head, Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj.