Wednesday, December 29, 2010

With projects on hand, and repayments up on face, banks not in a mood to lend to developers

As home buyers flee the market in the wake of high prices quoted by developers, banks have also started to close their doors on realtors. Developers across the city are looking worried as banks are delaying fresh debts, forcing developers to manage on their own.
A senior financial officer from a leading-listed Mumbai based realty company says, “The developers will have to manage the cash flows for next 2-3 months and expect moderate or no-growth at all in this market situation. The 1HCY11 will be painful for developers but from 2HCY11 we expect prices stabilising after a correction of 10-15%. At present the BPLR is around 12.5-13% and the risk weight-age is around 100-300 basis points, which makes our borrowing cost at 13.5-15.5%. But lending is not happening at all it is very slow earlier it used to take 2-3 months to get sanctions for loans but now the project files are just getting circulated for minimum 4-6 months. Honestly, in some areas developers have actually taken a cut of 10%. Also everyone will have to accept the fact that the madness rush that developers saw in 2009 that wouldn't be there.”

Bhaskar Chakraborty and Avi Mehta, institutional research analyst with IIFL, wrote in a note to clients on December 27, “Our channel checks indicate that fresh lending to real estate
developers by Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) banks is taking longer than in the past. With
the situation likely to continue till end-FY11, we see developers
with debt refinancing requirement in 2HFY11 increasingly
coming under pressure to cut prices to monetize inventory. We
expect to see selective price cuts in 4QFY11 in Mumbai
.”
S.Sridhar, CMD, Central Bank of India, had said in the sidelines of Credai Natcon event that project monitoring would be the key for project funding to developers.
Sridhar said, “At present we have 7% exposure to real estate and we are doing away with corporate loan we are providing only project specific loans that too we are monitoring them quite tightly and it is required as diversion of funds have taken place.”
A senior official from Corporation Bank said, “We are not sanctioning commercial loans to realty developers. We are very skeptical with regards to the sector.”
IDBI Bank and State Bank of India (SBI), both the large PSU's are becoming stringent in lending to realty players.
An official from SBI Bank said, “Now people are examining more examining seriously the viability of the projects. He tightening is to that extent. That said, if some one is fulfilling, say 70-75% of the requirement, there can be flexibility in the rest of it. There would be convulsions but the flow would go on. But the only thing that the financial instituions will have to see is that whether the projects will be one steam.”

Monday, December 20, 2010

Payesh and more...

Hey, this is my first food coloumn in DNA on Food!I hope you like it!


http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/column_with-love-kheer-and-devotion-for-my-family_1483041

Friday, November 12, 2010

cancellations spurr after RBI punches 10-90 off

The 10:90 bubble’s going phut, contrary to the view of developers who were convinced that the innovation was a perpetual goldmine.

The scheme, under which a real estate buyer paid only 10% of the property cost at the time of booking and 90% at the time of possession, was the buzz during the festival season.

However, it was felt that such loans were risky for banks and so the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stepped in and tightened the provisioning norms for such loans.

Bank approval rates for these loans have fallen steeply since then, because of which it is the builders who are now staring at possible cancellations.

Builders such as Indiabulls Real Estate (IBREL), Lodha Group and Nahar Group are among those to have floated this scheme.

Analysts said banks were rejecting loans because buyers failed the eligibility norms. Less than a sixth of the loans for such projects were getting passed, an analyst said.

“Such buyers are cancelling their bookings,” he said.
Another Mumbai-based analyst with a foreign brokerage said some top builders stopped this scheme two-three weeks back.
The RBI intervention would not have an impact on its sales since loans are yet to be sanctioned, he said.

Many developers are charging Rs23,600-28,000 per square feet for these properties, he said, adding, “When oversupply brings down prices and buyers default on payments, banks will be forced to sell these properties at big discounts, which will burst the bubble.”

Lodha Developers has sold 70 of the 100 flats it had put up for sale under this scheme, said R Karthik, senior vice-president - marketing, Lodha Group.

The average cost of the 3000-4000 sq ft flats was Rs10 crore and a tenth of the buyers did not opt for the 10:90 scheme. “Our buyers have tied up with Axis bank, IDBI, HDFC and SBI. It was a short-term scheme to get people like CEOs and financial services professionals into this segment,” said Karthik.

An official spokesperson of IBREL said the company has 300 bookings for its projects including SkySuites and Sky Forest, of which 100 clients have received loan sanctions, while 7 applications were rejected.

A senior official of State Bank of India, the biggest home loan provider, said, “One developer had come to us, but we need a margin of 15%, corporate guarantee of the mortgage of the property and 25% equity for home loan. They had already tied up for mortgage with other consortiums so we did not tie up for this scheme. And we give loans in a 25:75 ratio and in some special cases at 15:85, but not beyond that.” That ruled out the 10:90 schemes.

Banking sources said, “The agreement is clearly between the bank and the buyer, so if the developer tomorrow doesn’t pay or defaults, it is the buyer who has to pay up. Also, the sanctions have been very few as banks are becoming strict and only 10-15% sanctions have come from ICICI; HDFC’s sanctions are even lesser.”

An analyst from another domestic brokerage said, “Some builders are giving loans through their non-banking finance company under this scheme. But what happens if cancellations start happening as loan approvals are so few? The revenue that they have already booked for the second quarter will go for a toss.”

The problem with the 10-90 scheme is also that developers agree to pay interest only till the construction is completed. A buyer, on the other hand, gets possession only after the civic authorities give the occupancy certificate, pointed out an analyst with a foreign real estate consultancy.

“So you have this one-year gap because OCs normally take that much time after the construction is complete. That would mean buyers will have to foot the interest bill for the period.”

“If the developer is selling property claiming it would undertake interest subvention for that period, then the buyer should ensure that mentioned clearly in the agreement,” the aforesaid consultant said.

Ambar Maheshwari, director of investment advisory services, DTZ, another consultancy, said, “The scheme has many fallacies right at the beginning. It’s the buyer who will have to pay if the developer defaults or delays the construction schedule. Also, here, the bank is taking the risk to fund such a project, which is generally bought out by investors.”

Banks have also become wary of giving out such loans because their regulator, the Reserve Bank of India, looks down upon such lending practices. “So our management is not going to roll out the schemes in a huge manner,” said the official of a top public sectorbank.

Parsvnath outbids IBREL for RLDA land

Parsvnath developers, the Delhi based developer, bid for Rs 1651 crore and won a 38 acre land parcel from railway land development authority (RLDA).

Mumbai based Indiabulls Real Estate (IBREL) had bid for rs 1257 crore which was less by Rs 394 crore to outdo Parsvnath.

Pradeep Jain, chairman and managing director, Parsvnath told DNA Money, “The project has a saleable area of 5 msft and we will have to pay Rs 320 crore in next 90 days. After 18 months we have to pay another tranche. We have five and a half years to make the whole payment. We have already done the financial closure for the first tranche and rest would be paid through internal accruals.”

Red Fort Capital, the private equity fund headed by Parry Singh which has actively invested in Parsvnath is also a part of the financing process, though the stake sale and the amount it is invested will be divulged later, Jain added.

The developer would be putting up residential, commercial and a hotel property on the same. Though at present Jain did not comment on when the project would be launched. RLDA will handover the land after it enters into the agreement in next 90 days.


Close to fifteen companies were in the fray for the land which included Emaar MGF, Parsvnath Developers, BPTP, Indiabulls, Ackruti City, Emaar MGF, Peninsula Land, Ansal API and Godrej Properties, which were pre-qualified to participate in the bidding process.


RLDA has more than one lakh acre of surplus land across the country, which it plans to put on block in a phased manner which also includes the Bandra east prime land which was slated to be auctioned earlier this year which ealrier went to DLF. Strangely Mumbai based developers are now queing up in Delhi to bid for high end realty projects.