Macrotech Developers assures 20% bookings growth, citing robust demand across all sectors

Reflecting on the overall performance in 2023, Lodha remarked, "Generally 2023 has been a good strong year for the housing market."

However, Lodha acknowledged variations in growth across segments, noting, "The affordable entry segment, which are homes between ₹30 lakhs and ₹75 lakhs, are the ones which have performed the least well."

Shedding light on this, he explained that buyers in the affordable segment are adopting a wait-and-see approach, anticipating a decline in interest rates before making substantial investments.

“Interest rates suddenly spiked by 200-300 basis points (bps). That puts a load on the entry home buyer because they are very constrained and it also reduces their loan eligibility. So as interest rates have now started flattening and hopefully will come down in the next 12-18 months, we will start that segment because there is a lot of pent-up demand there,” he added.

Despite this challenge, Macrotech Developers remains optimistic about the broader market and is actively working on innovative strategies to address the specific needs of the affordable housing segment. Abhishek Lodha assured stakeholders that the company is well-prepared to adapt and capitalise on emerging opportunities in the dynamic real estate landscape.

“Generally there has been a price growth of 6-8%. We like that level of price growth because it is good for the existing buyers but it is below wage growth and therefore improves affordability,” he said.

“On an annualized basis data we had guided at the start of the year to price growth of between 6% and 8%. We like price growth to be a little south of wage growth. Because India story is a volume story, there is a lot of growth in housing volume that can happen and should happen as India moves from a low-income country to a mid-income country. The way that happens is if affordability keeps getting better. Interest rates are going to perform and help affordability over the next two years,” he explained.

While sharing his expectations from Union Budget 2024, he said, “Housing has such a huge multiplier effect on the economy. So to sustain our growth, it's very important that the volume of housing keeps increasing and growing. And therefore today, when the affordable segment, as we discussed, has been hit by interest rate increases, which they had nothing to contribute to. We need to support them in getting onto the housing ladder as soon as possible. So whatever the government can do to put more money in the hands of entry-level buyers, those who make between ₹5 lakhs and ₹15 lakhs a year and are entry-level buyers, would really have a cascading multiplier effect on the economy. And I hope that the honorable Prime Minister and the honorable Finance Minister can think about this and support the homebuyer, getting on the housing ladder as early as possible.”

With a market capitalization of ₹1,05,388 crore, Macrotech Developers, formerly known as Lodha Developers, stands as an Indian multinational real estate firm based in Mumbai, India. Established in 1980, the company was founded by Mangal Prabhat Lodha.