Real estate sector needs stressed asset fund to deal with NPAs, says Prestige Group

"Second point is really a concern of the industry is the fact that credit is such a big problem that you cannot imagine. So, I think the liquidity crisis is something which is really abhorrent and scary and really worrying everybody and especially after IL&FS went through its crisis the matter has been compounded. So on one side, there seems to be a positive view from the government in terms of affordable housing to the extent they have done in, while here the industry looks like quite a crisis. So two contradictory situations but both are understandable."

Narayana said: "Giving real estate a industry status is something which real estate has been asking for quite some time, so that will definitely help. In addition, the government should come up with some special measures to ease the liquidity issue. Also there are lot of stressed assets in the country across the geographies and regions, maybe we should look at forming a stressed asset fund or some kind of a platform wherein we can deal with those assets. Even if you look at RERA , every developer is registering their projects and more information is coming to light as to how many projects have not been delivered on time, how many projects are delayed, how many customers are stuck and all of that but this is only the information that we are getting, there is no mechanism for resolution of these issues. RERA has become problem identifying body, not a problem solving body."

Jain said: "The industry status demand has been there for a long time. All it does is it opens up various modes of financing at a much affordable or a better rate. If you look at the NBFC

Vohra said: "The ultimate solution that is going to come here is actually going to come from the customers. We need the customers to be a motivated lot. We need customers to start coming back and buying houses all over again. If you look at our numbers, our annual sales today in the top 7-8 cities are negative 40 percent compared to where we were in 2010-2011.

"What really needs to get the industry going is actual operating cash flows. Liquidity is a big issue and that needs to be addressed, stressed projects is a big issue which needs to be addressed but ultimately what we really need is actual operating cash flows coming from actual real sales and to that extent I think the budget has an opportunity, it is a real opportunity to induce or provide a stimulus to the buyers, to provide a stimulus to the demand side by increasing the deduction limit for interest on housing loans.

"Today the deduction limit is at Rs 2 lakh, my view is it should actually go up to about Rs 5 lakh in one shot. What that does is for people who are buying houses up to Rs 70-90 lakh, it actually gives them a big breather in terms of the total interest cost that they are incurring. So that will bring a lot of customers back into the market and that in turn gets your operating cash flows moving which in turn actually gets the liquidity cycle also moving at some level for real estate."