Realty News Roundup: FinMin To Push State-Run Banks For Further Home Loan Rate Cuts; PropTiger.com Launches City Master Plan For Home Buyers

Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley is expected to push state-run banks to boost their housing loan portfolio and consider further rate cuts. This report in The Economic Times quotes a senior finance ministry official as saying the banks have been asked to submit their housing loan data and suggest ways to increase the housing loan portfolio as a pickup in demand for homes will help spur the economy.

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu said that the housing for all initiative, which is to be launched, will address the shortcomings of earlier housing schemes and will be more workable. Mr Naidu was addressing the members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministries of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation. 

The National Capital Region (NCR) has got bigger as the National Capital Region Planning Board at its annual meeting decided to include the districts of Jind and Kad Karnal in Haryana and Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh as part of NCR. Inclusion in to the region is expected to raise property prices in these areas over the medium term as infrastructure and connectivity with Delhi improve.

In a first of its kind development, online real estate service PropTiger.com has launched a new service feature called City Master Plan that gives consumers and property investors an excellent feel for the present and future infrastructure development around a property they are planning to purchase. In this report, PropTiger.com CEO Dhurv Agarwala is quoted as saying, “So far, no Indian real estate portal has attempted to bridge this information gap. 'City Master Plan' attempts to bridge this gap by giving buyers a rounded futuristic view of the development of the locality thereby also giving a sense of likely future value.”

In yet another development, China's realty major Dalian Wanda group is reported to be looking to invest at least USD 5 billion in developing industrial townships in India. Reports suggest that the company is in talks with firms like DLF for partnership.