CII Real Estate Confluence 2023: Officials highlighted the proposed new housing policy

Affordable Housing is unaffordable for many of those it is meant for in Mumbai and what Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) needs a different set of parameters to make affordable housing available to a larger number of home seekers, said Valsa Nair Singh, Additional Chief Secretary, Housing Department, Government of Maharashtra. She was speaking at the 5th edition of the CII Real Estate Confluence 2023, held in Mumbai.

“Strong stimulus by the Maharashtra Government ensured that the pandemic didn’t negatively impact housing and real estate. The post-pandemic world sees changed requirements and to successfully meet these, a new policy is being proposed. This will be inclusive and created with inputs from all stakeholders, and will focus on making housing sustainable, affordable and innovative, with ‘Green’ building tech being the primary focus,” she added.

Ajoy Mehta, Chairman, MahaRERA, mentioned that Maharashtra has been the leader in implementing RERA in country. “You have numbers, so you have noise. The beauty is when it turns into music,” he pointed out. “While transparency was the key, it had to be balanced by ensuring that the sharing of information was limited to that which would help the home buyer do due diligence and take the right decision,” he added.

Dr Praveer Sinha, Chairman, CII Western Region, spoke of the resurgence in Indian real estate and how it will play a major role in driving the nation’s economic growth.

We are seeing higher inflows from equity in housing, this reflects on improved investment opportunities in the sector, said Anuj Puri, Chairman, CII 5th Real Estate Confluence 2023 & Chairman, ANAROCK Group.

The CII-Anarock Real Estate Report released during the event, made some interesting points - for instance, 45% of property seekers in NCR and 32% in MMR now prefer to buy 3BHKs. Millennials continue to drive housing demand, and the end-user-investor ratio now stands at 71:29, the report highlighted.

Neel Raheja, Chairman, CII National Committee on Real Estate and Housing, mentioned that while driving India’s target of becoming a $ 5 trillion economy was something where real estate would play its role, there were challenges which needed resolution.