Friday, June 16, 2017

RERA registrations in Mumbai Sluggish

As of June 15, 2017, only 16 Mumbai projects (plus 4 in Thane; 32 overall Maharashtra) are displayed as registered on the Maharashtra RERA website, which we believe are those approved by the regulator. While there is likelihood that more projects may have been registered but not approved as yet (hence not displayed), total approvals appear quite low versus the quantum of ongoing projects—800 plus, we estimate. In our view, the poor registration statistics could be due to developers taking time to understand process details and aligning their internal processes with RERA's provisions.

Channel checks with GPL, Oberoi and SRL (exposed to Mumbai residential market) indicate that they are in an advanced stage of background preparation for registering their projects under Maharashtra RERA. This, according to them, is a time consuming process and are seeking expert guidance to adhere to the regulations. They expect to begin the registration process over coming weeks and are confident of meeting the July 31 deadline; they do not anticipate any disruption in their project sales. Failure to meet the deadline will prevent them from advertising & selling unregistered projects.

In view of the poor registration momentum in Mumbai, we see risk of a meaningful proportion of ongoing projects remaining unregistered at the end of the deadline. New launches in Mumbai have slowed down pending RERA registration and we expect this to continue for coming few months until developers align themselves with RERA requirements. We, hence, expect new sales to slowdown in the Mumbai market post the deadline, with steady recovery in ensuing months as registration of ongoing projects and new launches pick up.

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