The real estate market is expected to grow amid Covid-19 pandemic as people now want homes where they can adjust room sizes and have extra space if anyone gets infected with Coronavirus. These are the words of Harsh Vardhan Bansal, director, Unity Group who feels the current pandemic that the current pandemic has changed demand in types of homes wanted by people.
Speaking exclusively to NewsX, Bansal says, “Home is the safest place on earth. Especially during this Covid pandemic, it’s now been proven. No place is safer than home and people want to feel that kind of security when they’re going to buy homes. For instance, if someone gets Covid, he or she needs to be quarantined and for that you’ll need the space.”
He feels that the demand will decrease for the time being, but will eventually begin to pick up again. According to him this will happen because the Chinese companies will come again to set up their shops in India. “If the government gives good trade contracts to the Chinese companies, they will come and work here. We are banking that this will help the state of commercial real estate,” he adds.
Bansal who is really optimistic about the home real estate sector however is not so sure about early improvements in commercial real estate sector as many companies are now trying to downsize their properties and are trying to get people to work from home. “If you’ve got a staff of 200 people, you’d be looking for an office space for 100, and the rest would be working from home,” he says. However, suggesting some recovery measures for real estate, he says that GST needs to be altered to cut the production cost by 15 percent. ”While the government has done a good job by lowering the CRR and the repo rate, the banks have not passed on the same to the end user. They are just looking for lower interest rates on their loans, and we would ask that the government make sure that what is passed on to the banks, is also passed on the people,” adds Bansal.
