Skip to main content

FDI relaxation for real estate brokerages to boost investment: Experts

FDI relaxation for real estate brokerages to boost investment: Experts
The government's decision to allow 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) under automatic route in the real-estate broking services is expected to boost the segment as this would enable international brokerage companies to invest in Indian counterparts and also set up their own subsidiaries here.
The move, according to experts, would help in formalizing the largely unorganized segment, create more jobs and offer professional services to property buyers."The Cabinet, through an amendment to the FDI policy has clarified that Real Estate broking services would not be classified as Real Estate business.
Accordingly, companies undertaking such activities are eligible for 100% FDI under automatic route. This is a welcome clarification especially given the number of startups in this space offering innovative broking products," said Bhairav Dalal, Partner - Real Estate Tax, PwC India.
According to ANAROCK Property Consultants' Chairman Anuj Puri, the 100% FDI route had existed in previous years, allowing various multi-national property consultancies to enter India without local partners. Then, the route was closed down without notice or explanation.
However, he is of view that players who can benefit from opening up of FDI are limited, considering that only between 10-20% of property brokers and brokerages have registered themselves under RERA so far."As such, this is historically not a new provision, but the timing of its re-introduction is certainly right, with RERA now deployed and looking to have nation-wide coverage.While RERA registration will be the primary lodestone against which foreign investors will measure potential consultancies, they will also look at the level of corporate governance, reputation for transparent dealings and customer-centric culture," Puri said.
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 11/01/2018

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...