New Delhi: Lakhs of home buyers across major cities in the country are passing through an anxious phase as more than 5.6 lakh housing units worth Rs 4.5 lakh crore are running behind the delivery timeline, leading real estate service company Anarock has said.
These 5.6 lakh flats were launched before 2013 in these seven cities — National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
“The top 7 cities currently have a total stock of 5.6 lakh delayed housing units worth a whopping Rs 4,51,750 crore,” business daily Live Mint carried a report on Tuesday quoting Anarock founder and chairman Anuj Puri.
As per the Anarock data, the NCR and MMR account for 72 per cent of the total stuck housing units.
In MMR, as many as 1,92,100 apartments worth Rs 2,17,550 crore are delayed, while the NCR has 2,10,200 units worth Rs 1,31,460 crore running behind schedule.
“It has become a ‘chicken and egg’ situation – buyers have understandably stopped releasing funds to builders, and builders claim they have no funds to complete construction,” Puri added.
Every delayed project results in cost overruns, which compound the funds crunch even further.
“Whichever government is in power after the upcoming general elections, it has a mammoth task to complete. Delayed projects have severely weakened faith in under-construction properties and reviving buyers’ trust is a Herculean task,” Puri said.
If buyers stop purchasing under-construction properties, builders would have a far more challenging time to get funds from external sources for project construction, he said.
