There are some signs of improvement in the housing sector that had been on a downward spiral for the past three years. The entrepreneurs are considering the rising interest of consumers toward housing, apartment and other collective residential projects as improvement following the slowdown.

They claimed that the remaining units of previous projects are being booked on a large scale now though new projects are not brought forward. Over 114 units of houses and land of the second phase of Green Hill City Residential Project have been booked while 129 units of the first phase of the same project had already been booked. Both the projects in Mulpani, owned by Secretary of the Nepal Land and Housing Developers' Association (NLHDA) Bhesh Raj Lohani, were started when the realty sector was on a rapid slowdown.

The recently started fifth phase of Civil Homes has also seen similar response. The Civil Homes management claimed that over three dozen units of the fifth phase in Sunakothi, that offers a ready house at a lowly Rs 6.7 million, have already been booked. The management claimed that the hopes have been raised due to the rise in number of consumers, who would not come to have a look despite several promotional campaigns in the past.  Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CE Construction Bijay Rajbhandari claimed all the projects started by his company have been sold immediately after completion of construction. "No unit remains unsold in any project built by our company. The houses in Lazimpat were sold within a month of opening of booking," he claimed.

Sales and Marketing Chief of CG Developers Satyajit Pradhan said 21 out of the 53 houses built in Hattigaunda have been sold within six months of start of sales. He said 10 others will be sold within a month while others are under construction. Housing entrepreneurs stated that almost all the houses and apartments constructed by reputed and reliable developers are sold. They claimed that there is no problem in projects built by companies other than Guna and Oriental groups. A few groups are showing interest to buy in bulk even the projects of the two groups.

"The housing and realty sector is slowly recovering though it has not seen expected development due to wrong government policies," NLHDA President Ichchha Raj Tamang said. "Even the general public now has started to understand the importance of well-managed residential areas, though the private sector suffered in the past in lack of any government policy for the sector," he added. He claimed that the remaining units of previous projects are being sold now. "The clients do not face any problem in taking loans now after the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) separated real estate and home loans. There are hopes for start of new projects as no entrepreneur who has invested after studying the demand and supply scenario in the market is currently facing any problem," he explained.

Secretary Lohani said everybody is ready to invest if good and attractive projects were on offer. Stating that the present recovery is all due to the efforts of entrepreneurs, he stated the situation will improve further if the government were to introduce a long-term policy for the housing and realty sector. The entrepreneurs claimed that the problems in the sector were not all of their own making and stated that they erred in the past as the government brought no act or regulation to manage the transactions of this sector on time.

"The problem arose as the act we have been demanding to manage the sector for the past six years has been stuck in the parliament," Tamang stated. "The government was not serious about the issue, though we ourselves paved the way for the government to regulate and manage the sector. The wrongdoers got an opportunity in lack of regulation and people with a greed to become rich overnight by generating huge profits in a short time appeared even in the sector," he added but claimed that the number of such entrepreneurs was not significant.

source:karobar,23 Feb 2013