Due to the pandemic of COVID 19, the Real estate industry has been facing the biggest slowdown that has never been seen in the past. As the COVID cases have surpassed 5.9 million in India, the impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak seem devastating. With the national GDP plunging into negative figures, the country seems to be facing one of its worst economic recession. The real estate sector, too, touched the lowest of lows during the almost three-month-long nationwide lockdown said Mr. Sandeep Karnavat. 

In an interview with Mr. Sandeep Karnavat, promoter of Sunjana Developers and The Karnavat Group, Mr. Sandeep Karnavat informed us that, “Construction activities came to a sudden halt, migration of laborers made the resumption of work even difficult. Developers faced severe liquidity constraints and homebuyers lost a significant chance to buy a property after the job market got gravely bitten.”

Mr. Sandeep Karnavat also elaborated that as per a recent report the deal in office spaces in India increased 27% in 2019, to an all-time high of over 60 million sq ft, the growth momentum in India’s office space has also got derailed due to the virus attack. Thereby, many buyers have changed their decision of buying new homes because most of them have lost their jobs and others are getting a salary cut somewhere between 25% to 35%. 

Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India has announced several rate cuts, bringing the repo rate down to 4%, which can assist and support existing buyers, that are currently struggling to pay their EMI’s in the short or medium-term, because of the lockdown or in the event of job loss or salary cut. 

Mr. Sandeep Karnavat believes that with he is only hopeful of seeing consumer demand rise in the following quarters, and will be focused on being strategic with projects and investments for the coming two quarters. As the industry has been reeling under a slowdown for the last eight years, developers do not have much scope to cut costs further.