Paul Sharma, 46, a portfolio manager with a hedge fund in London, plans to apply for an overseas Indian citizenship that would let him buy real estate in one of the fastest appreciating real estate markets in Asia.
Sharma, who is partly of Indian origin, left India in 1968 and has since been living in the UK. And he is not eyeing India for sentimental reasons alone.
“I am basically from Himachal Pradesh and I would like to buy a property somewhere around my native place,” Sharma says. Though he has property in the UK, he isn’t buying more there.
“I think one of the issues in the UK real estate market is that it is really difficult to track the market. The last time there was a softening in the UK property market, it was for six years—from 1989 to 1995.”
Developers say that even as sales in the real estate India market are declining, demand from overseas and non-resident Indians (NRIs), especially in the luxury housing segment, is on an upswing.
The real estate sector in the country has been growing at 30-35% a year to touch $12 billion (Rs47,760 crore) this year, according to consultancy firm Ernst & Young’s report.
In the last six months or so, the real estate market has seen a drop of 60% in sales in the top cities as higher interest rates crimp buying. But demand from the overseas Indian community continues to be strong because it is not facing a similar sharp rate hike in those countries, where the real estate market is more mature and the returns less assured.
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