The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India CREDAI is hopeful of a positive year for the Indian real estate industry in 2010. Indeed, the market is expected to return to the 2007-08 level if everything goes well in the current year.

Given the right opportunity and supportive policies, the real estate sector will prove effective in driving the country GDP growth. Infrastructure development is an area that will play a vital role, as increased connectivity in terms of roads, rail, communication, etc., will lead to development in real estate.

Development of other asset classes like warehousing, logistics, tourism, hospitality, etc., will also boost the real estate activity.

With the government continued focus on infrastructure development, it seems very probable that the country economic revival will be driven by infrastructure growth, which, in turn, can accelerate real estate activities both in the residential as well as commercial segments.

Kumar Gera, Chairman, CREDAI, says, this year will be crucial for the housing industry given the government concern over the massive housing needs of the people, especially in the urban areas.

Supportive policies to encourage and aid the housing requirements of all sections are expected to propel the development in the real estate and allied sectors as well. Affordable housing will be a key factor in driving the sector and CREDAI has already started working on progressive solutions in this area for effective and customised implementation as suited to the Indian situation through NATCON 2010. Also, focus on tier II and tier III cities apart from the metros will help widen the market and generate demand.

The revival of the IT industry too is crucial as it is likely to impact the development of the realty sector to a considerable extent.

The economic revival of US will be able to help stabilize the situation as regards the IT sector as well as Special Economic Zones SEZ in our country. While safeguarding the interests of the sector, CREDAI has been highly active in urging its members to take the necessary price correction measures, which has also helped the revival process. By the end of 2009, the prices stabilised and sales improved considerably for the housing sector.

CREDAI had expressed its disappointment on the Union Budget 2009 and continues to advocate fiscal incentives for encouraging `affordable mass housing’ in the country exemption of direct and indirect taxes to boost `slum redevelopment’ initiative increasing deduction on interest paid on self occupied residential house property; and incentives to senior citizens on purchase of housing.

The proposed Regulation Bill has also been a point of concern wherein the industry had placed its concerns of duplication of laws, lack of compliance by local authorities, issue of project approval and no regulation for errant buyers. In this context, CREDAI has urged the government to reconsider the issues and take concrete measures.

CREDAI is the apex body of the organized real estate developers/builders across India, representing pan-India associations of real estate and housing developers. Since its inception in the year 1999, the association has grown manifold with associations from 20 state city levels Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi-NCR, Goa, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal with over 5000 individual member developers encompassing over 60 per cent of the organized private sector real estate development activity in member states cities in the country. CREDAI has been instrumental in rallying the cause of the real estate sector by presenting the issues and concerns of real estate developers to the government.

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