Monday, April 7, 2008

Is buying home abroad a fashion or it really makes sense for an Indian?

Well, two years before when I moved from London to India, I always thought buying home in India was cheaper and made more sense and those who invest abroad mostly do it for flaunting…but two years living here and seeing the entire lifecycle of real estate development and growth, I am not so sure if its for the snob value alone that people are investing abroad.

During the last quarter of 2007, I did visit a few exhibitions in Delhi and Mumbai, where the most exotic real estate was showcased from across India with very fashionable tags attached to them. When I saw developers like DAMAC, Al Fara, Dubai Properties, Kuala Lumpur Metro Group and many other foreign developers wooing buyers in the Indian market to invest in Dubai and Malaysia, my first reaction was….nah…it isn’t going to work.

I thought Indians are traditionally not the people who would buy houses abroad, but I was most certainly wrong.

I actually have discussed this with executives from leading developers from these countries and found out that its pretty interesting but not only do their investments give better returns but it also comes coupled with lucrative bonuses like holidays, lucky draws to win cars, luxury apartments, sometimes maybe even jets.

Typically, Dubai, Malaysia and Singapore are the few attractive destinations where Indian residents are looking at investing or have been investing for a while now. Due to the slowdown in US and the falling property prices, a lot of US developers are seen moving to India…expecting to attract them to invest in various parts of US.

With Indian residents having the flexibility to invest $100,000 per head every year in foreign property, it makes a lot of sense for foreign developers to get to India since their investments now only offer better rental incomes but in Dubai and Malaysia they come with tax holiday on any money you make out of the property appreciation, which sure is a big bonus. Dubai goes one step further and offers a citizenship also on investing in a property there, which has proved to be a major plus when it comes to the Dubai based groups winning over the investment game.

Rahul Gandhi

Contributed By : Rahul Gandhi

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

fyi in dubai citizenship is not granted on purchase of property.
residency is conditionaly given on handover.