National Housing Bank expects more companies

More players, including corporate houses and financial institutes are looking to start affordable housing focussed housing finance companies (HFCs) days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced sops for the sector, a top National Housing Bank official said. “We have already received about six applications for housing finance licences,” Sriram Kalyanaraman, national director & chief executive officer, NHB, told. Apart from registering, regulating and supervising HFCs, NHB also provides refinancing, project lending to municipalities for affordable housing. NHB currently has many affordable housing projects in Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Rajkot. NHB provides 6.5% subsidiary on Rs 6 lakh loan amount to Economic Weaker Section (EWS) and Lower Income Group (LIG) groups. Modi’s latest subsidy could make affordable housing more attractive for many housing finance companies. “We expect further increase in interest in housing finance space; once the rules on PM’s announcement are notified” said Kalyanaraman. The notification is expected in a week. Kalyanaraman expects land prices to come down as well due to demonetisation.