The National Housing Bank (NHB), which recently unveiled the first residential house price index (Residex), plans to extend its coverage to 35 cities this year and is in the process of collecting 30,000 entries for the same.

The bank intends to have an index for all the 63 cities covered by the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission. Currently, a Residex is available for 15 cities, including the four metros and Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Patna. The indices all have a base year of 2007 and base value of 100.

“NHB is also creating a platform for electronic filing of mortgage loans disbursed by banks, so that lenders do not mistakenly give out a double loan for the same property,” said S Sridhar, Chairman and Managing Director, NHB.

He added, “We are also trying to form a uniform valuation standard for developers in a few months and every developer should undertake credit rating and project grading for projects above certain value.”

NHB says the industry will need Rs6.5-lakh crore over 5 years for affordable housing projects. The money would be disbursed through banks and housing finance companies.

The bank is close to finalising a partner for its private mortgage guarantee fund for lending to the middle income segment.

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