Indian property bubble

The Indian property bubble refers to the concern expressed by some Indian economists that housing market in some major Indian cities may be in a bubble.

The real estate sector is thought to be collapsing due to increasing costs of financing. Real estate projects in India take a long time to complete due to a complicated and corrupt regulatory mechanism. Several of the India's publicly traded real estate firms are in debt. The inventory of unsold real estate assets is growing and it is expected the market will undergo price corrections. According to Mumbai-based market research agency, Liases Foras, 30% of the transaction in the real estate sector is done with black money. Demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes by Prime minister Modi proved to be the last straw that broke the black money camel's back. Experts expect new property prices to fall upto 50% in next three months in Tier 1 cities.

In 2006, Himanshu Joshi, the Director of Monetary Policy Department, Reserve Bank of India, published a paper which raised concerns about the rapid growth of the housing market and its sustainability. The paper said that the house prices in India were correlated more with interest rates and credit growth, and very little with the growth of real income.

In a September 2013 interview, Venkatesh Panchapagesan, the Head of Century Real Estate Research Initiative, IIM, Bangalore, said that the weakening of the rupee and lack of credit in the sector would cause prices to fall. He also said the prices should be falling faster, but due to the lack of transparency in the sector, it is not doing so.

In March 2005, the Government of India permitted 100% foreign direct investment in construction and development projects. Before that only non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin were allowed to investment in the real estate sector. Foreign investors could only invest through wholly owned subsidiaries and partnerships with Indian firms. However, foreign investors were not allowed to hold land for speculative purposes.

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