Saturday, May 29, 2021

Buying your second property? Here is the checklist

Second home, a nomenclature designated to vacation house, investment house, or simply a home for the extended family. Whatever name you call it, second home market is developing as a cash cow for the investors and developers alike. Let us look into the concept of home away from home in some more detail and see a checklist to help make it a profitable venture without burning a hole in your pockets.

Buying a second house is very similar to buying the primary residence to some extent. However the dynamics might change depending on the purpose for which the property is bought. The purchase of such houses depends mostly on disposable income, as they are bought to match the lifestyle choice more than the primary need. Thus a lot of other things like purpose, affordability, and location etc. come into the picture.

For someone planning to buy a second house, hundreds of things need to be considered. It has been observed that it all comes down to a few basic points like purpose, affordability, location, and some other similar factors.



If you are struggling with the decision of whether or not to buy a second house, here is a checklist of decisions that you will have to encounter in order to take a sound decision. Give them a thorough thought before you go ahead and buy a house.


  • Buy an age friendly house

Investing in a retirement house is also a very common thing. If that is your plan and you have decided on living in the second house, opt for an age friendly house. The amenities offered by the project will play a major role here. For a house that you plan to retire in, it should have all the care facilities, ATMs, shopping complexes, etc. in close proximity.

In India, places like Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, etc. are seen as age friendly cities. So if you plan on retiring in comfort, buy an apartment in Bangalore or opt for a house in Pune or Chennai.


  • Think about the location 

It is one of the main considerations that second-home buyers take. The first part is to decide whether to invest in your city or buy a house elsewhere. Factors like safety, property values, rate of returns, etc. hold importance in deciding the location.

For those looking to buy house in the same city, pointers like purpose, location, and neighborhood plays a major role.

If you plan to buy a house for investment purposes, go for areas near metro routes or high on physical infrastructure front. In a country like India, where the real estate developments are on an all-time high, there are a number of profitable options available to you as second house destinations.


  • Purpose of the second house

The purpose of buying a second house should be clear before you make the investment. Decide whether you are looking for retirement house, vacation house, or for investment needs. The location, price of project, and future of the property depends on this choice.

When buying house for vacation, the factors like returns, neighborhood etc. are overridden by luxury, comfort, and status-quo. And when you buy a house for investments, the exact opposite happens.


  • Finances 

The main concern when buying a second property is Finances. If you already have the first property going on EMI, it is important to decide whether you want the second property on EMI too, or you want to pay the loan off on the first one and start a fresh loan scheme.

The affordability should always be given a priority. Avoid keeping both the property on loan. Have a good portion of the income with yourself to handle any exigencies with ease.


  • Decide what happens with the old house

It is closely related to the purpose point. Before you buy the new house, decide what you are going to do with the old one. It is seen that people often live in the new house and put the old one on rent. Do proper house-benefit analyses before you decide on something. The pricing and EMI is the first thing that will directly affect this decision.

Before you finalize something, work on the tax benefits and insurances, to get a clearer picture of what is beneficial for you.


  • Land vs. Apartment

Another important decision to take is Apartment vs. Land analysis. People who have already acquired a piece of land prefer to buy an apartment as their second house, and vice-versa. Again factors like purpose and affordability, finances play a major role here.

Along with huge tax benefits and a place for retreat or simply a source of extra income, second homes offer a number a benefits to the owner. However, the intensity of decisions in terms of how crucial they are increases in the second time round. Before you start searching for properties, go through the checklist and take a calculated decision.

This is a guest post by Tripti. Tripti writes on the behalf of 99acres.com. Her articles talk about new developments in the real estate industry. She is an avid fiction reader, craftsman and a keen observer. Being someone who just observes without having a point of view, she keeps herself updated in real time. You can reach her on LinkedIn.


Saturday, May 22, 2021

What impact does interest rate have on the state of real estate sector in India?

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter

18th December 2013 was keenly watched by the markets and industries alike, particularly the real estate sector in India. RBI governor was to announce the monetary policy and interest rates hike was expected because of the stubbornly high inflation prevailing in the economy. However, to the surprise of all and sundry, Raghuram Rajan refrained from rate hike and brought smiles to the market and industry.

Commenting on the policy, Real estate major DLF Group Executive Director Rajeev Talwar said: "It's a welcome step. This is the first sign of recovery. If government can release food stocks to contain food-based inflation then possibly in coming time RBI may be able to take more steps for recovery of the economy. RBI governor has taken a bold step by keeping the rates flat." Most other real estate developers and consultants welcomed the step. So, what kind of impact can interest rate have on property sector in India, let’s explore.


  • Firstly, what are interest rates?

Consider an investment portfolio having investments in all productive activities in the economy based on their respective share of the economy to the total value of all productive activity in the economy, the rate of current earnings on such a portfolio would be equivalent to the real rate of interest. Such a rate would also be the rate required by economic units to save rather than consume from current income. This is also the minimum rate of interest that any investor, be it in realty sector, would least likely expect from their investments. Therefore, when RBI announces that Repo rate would stay unchanged at 7.75%, it was welcomed by the industry.


  • Relation to inflation:

In addition to the real rate of interest, a concern that all investors have when making investment decisions is how inflation will affect investment returns. Inflation in India is particularly high; however, of all the commodities which form the basis of calculating inflation, the food inflation has been highest. And RBI was worried about curbing the inflation which eats into returns on investments or future incomes. However, RBI’s view is that most of the concern for inflation is the supply side and having had excellent monsoon would probably bring the inflation down due to bumper crops. Therefore, Rajan refrained from raising interest rates.


  • Effect of interest rate on real estate supply:

Real estate supply is the addition of new stock of housing, office spaces, retail spaces, etc. to the market. Now, when a real estate developer decides to bring that supply to the market, he/she has to justify at-least the real rate of return on his/her investment. If the returns are low, investors would rather save their money than invest in realty projects. Therefore, when interest rates are low, it encourages builders to invest in real estate projects rather than save their money. At the same time, they can borrow funds from the market at lower rates and thereby cost of building real estate projects come down. Additionally, the debt servicing for the leading real estate developers come down and there is renewed excitement for all the real estate players. Financing real estate projects involves borrowing on a long-term or short-term basis. Because large amounts are usually borrowed for property development, financing costs are significant in amount and weigh heavily in the decision to develop real estate projects. Therefore, the lower the financing costs, the better it is for builders to bring new supply to the market.


  • Effect of interest rate on real estate demand:

The demand for housing or commercial property is generally determined by the population growth, household income, household preferences for other goods and investments, and the interest rate that must be paid to finance the loan. Now, an individual who is looking to invest in a property will certainly evaluate his/her financing costs and higher the financing costs, the less likely, that individual would be to refrain from investing in property. For example, an individual buys an apartment at Rs. 30 Lacs. He procures a loan of Rs. 20 Lacs for 20 years at 11%. The EMI or monthly payment will be Rs. 20643.77. However, as we noticed today, State Bank of India has recently reduced their lending rates. And even a drop of 50 basis points or 0.5% would bring down the EMIs from Rs. 20643.77 to Rs. 19967.60. Thereby, cost of financing goes down by Rs. 676.17 a month or Rs. 8114.04 a year. Hence, bringing interest rates down encourages buyers to invest in property.

































  • Desired Scenario:

Having the desired equilibrium between inflation and interest rates will lead to the growth of realty sector where both suppliers and consumers of real estate feel encouraged in participating.  And this will eventually lead to the overall growth of the Indian economy.


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Saturday, May 15, 2021

Looking to construct your own house on a given piece of land? Pay attention to stages of construction and the cost part of it.

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter

Planning to build your home on a piece of plot? What are the things that one needs to keep in mind before embarking on a year long journey of construction and dealing with multiple contractors, suppliers, etc? Surely, as an owner of the plot, you would have got multiple offers from architectural firms, contractors about the cost estimate. However, before even talking to these firms, one need to do his/her cost estimation.

Constructing one’s house is not easy because of the nature of the work. One needs to work/deal with professional firms such as architects, contractors and at the same time deal with labor. Therefore, you not only need to plan the stages of construction but also the costing part of it. Doing the cost analysis helps you in analyzing what you need to build and what you can postpone for future dates. For example, if your budget is limited, then in all likelihood, you may not go for modular kitchens, lavish bath fittings, etc.

Here we present the quick ‘to do’ list for you to arrive at a guesstimate of cost that you may incur during the construction of your dream house. This will help you in planning your construction stages as well as cost part of it.



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Saturday, May 8, 2021

List of Permits and procedures generally required for construction of a real estate project in India

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter

Chennai building collapsed on June 28, 2014. Death toll has risen to 61.

As rescue operations by multiple agencies entered the sixth day, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa announced that the one-man commission headed by Justice (Retd) R Reghupathy will probe the circumstances leading to the collapse of the building at suburban Porur on June 28.

"The Commission will find out whose ignorant attitude resulted in such a mishap that left many workers dead and others injured and decide on (fixing) those responsible for it," she said in a release.

Who is responsible for the mishap? Is it the builder, designers, or the authorities? We will get to know by the findings of this commission.

Here is a list of various permits that are generally required for constructing a realty project in India. However, these may vary for Municipal Authorities across India.




Now, once the commission probes the matter, we will get to know at which stage the laxity happened. We are also sure that necessary corrective actions will be taken to prevent such mishaps from happening in the future.

The construction processes will be streamlined and there will be enough watchdogs to make sure that construction of buildings take place as laid out in the design. We recommend setting up of non-partisan private construction quality agencies which will ensure that construction is as per the design and there is no usage of sub-standard material.



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Saturday, May 1, 2021

How to calculate EMIs, Home Loan payments, home affordability, pre-payment of a loan in Microsoft Excel?

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter

Many a times, we have been inundated with queries such as how to calculate the Equated Monthly Installments (EMIs), what is the formula for checking the home affordability, what amount will I have to pay if I pre pay my home loan? These are basic yet important questions and therefore, understanding these concepts is crucial for real estate investment. Here we present the formulas in Microsoft Excel for you to calculate EMIs, Interest payments, home affordability, pre payment, changing the loan tenure.

Equated Monthly Installments (EMIs):
As the name suggests, EMIs are the monthly payments you will make for loan against property or any other thing.

Here is an example:
Loan Amount (Rs) - 100000
Interest Rate (%) - 11
Loan Tenure (Years) - 20

EMI (Rs) - 1032
Total Interest Payable (Rs) - 147725
Total of Payments (Principal + Interest) (Rs) - 247725

The formula for calculating EMI in excel is given below:
=PMT(rate, nper, pv, [fv], [type])
Rate = Interest Rate in percent, nper=Loan tenure in months, pv=present value or principal amount, fv=future value

During the EMI Calculations, leave out ‘fv’ and ‘type’ and fill in the other values.
=PMT((Interest Rate/12)%, Loan Tenure*12,- Loan Amount)
=PMT((11/12)%, 20*12,- 100000)
EMI = Rs. 1032

In this calculation, we divide interest rate by 12 to arrive at the monthly interest charged.


Interest that is paid on each EMI:
=IPMT(rate, per, nper, pv, [fv], [type])
IPMT – Interest paid for a given EMI
Rate – rate of interest
Per - The month for which you want to find the interest and must be in the range 1 to nper.
Nper- total number of months
Pv – present value or principal amount
Fv- future value
Type- optional

=IPMT((11/12)%, 1, 240, -100000)
=Rs. 916.67 (It means, on your first EMI of Rs 1032, the interest paid will be Rs 916.67)

=IPMT((11/12)%, 240, 240, -100000)
=Rs. 9.38 (It means, on your 240th EMI of Rs 1032, the interest paid will be Rs 9.38)

=IPMT((11/12)%, 200, 240, -100000)
=Rs. 322.15 (It means, on your 200th EMI of Rs 1032, the interest paid will be Rs 322.15)

Similarly, you can calculate for other monthly EMIs by just changing the ‘per’ value from 1 to 240


Total Interest paid during the tenure of the loan:
=CUMIPMT(rate, nper, pv, start_period, end_period, type)
=CUMIPMT((11/12)%, 240, 100000, 1, 240, 0)
=(Rs. 147725.21)

In our example, start period is 1 and end period is 240. You can also calculate the total interest paid say for a period of 13 to 228. In other words, how much interest did you pay from second year on-wards up to the end of 19th year.

=CUMIPMT((11/12)%, 240, 100000, 13, 228, 0)
=(Rs. 136089.79)


Home Affordability:
Home affordability is the measure of the value of the home that you can afford given your current household income. Detailed analysis of home affordability is given here.


Pre Payment or changing the tenure of the loan:
Suppose, you secured a home loan of Rs 100000 in 2008 and have paid 60 EMIs thus far. You have now decided to pre pay your entire loan amount. What will be the value that you will have to pay now? Here is the answer:
=IPMT(rate, per, nper, pv, [fv], [type])/rate
=IPMT((11/12)%, 61, 240, -100000)/ (11/12)%
=(Rs. 90813.93)

Similarly, you can calculate for any period. Say, for example, you have paid 88 EMIs and now want to pre pay the loan amount. Just replace the value of ‘per’ to 89 from 61.
=IPMT((11/12)%, 89, 240, -100000)/ (11/12)%
=(Rs. 84471.24)

Having arrived at the loan balance using the above formula, you can either pre pay the entire balance amount or reduce the tenure of the loan to arrive at new EMIs using the payment formula.
=PMT(rate, nper, pv, [fv], [type])

Thanks


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