Realtors unfazed by Dalal Street crash

Mumbai: While the stock market shake-up would have caused a bit of a concern, realtors believe Monday's crash would have no major impact on the booming real estate market.

"The real estate market continues to be buoyant as the fundamentals are still strong.

Money continues to be invested in the market where disparity between supply and demand is pushing up prices," said Anshuman Magazine, managing director of CB Richard Ellis, a international consulting firm.

He refused to put a time frame for a correction in property prices. "Furthermore, unlike stocks, real estate cannot be easily converted into liquidity. People have a better capacity to hold on to their investments," he added.

Echoing Magazine's view, Anuj Puri, managing director, Trammel Crow Meghraj, said:

"While the market will take an emotional beating, with a few investors disappearing, it would not affect the real estate market as a whole. Prices are currently driven by genuine users and not speculators like in the 1990s."

Realtors believe just 10-20% of the total properties developed now is purchased by investors, unlike in 1995 where 50% of the buyers were investors and speculators.

To support their claim, realtors point to the large number of foreign investors such as GE, Farallon, Emaar and Keppel keen to capture a piece of the booming real estate market here.