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Dewan Housing Finance Corporation, a private housing finance company is eyeing Maharashtra’s semi urban and rural market for housing finance lending business. It has over 11,000 customers in and around Pune with a portfolio size of Rs 1,000 crore.
“We are educating our customers on buying homes rather than paying rent for homes.Pune is a critical market for DHFL. The property prices in Pune has shown tremendous growth in the last seven years,” said Rakesh Makkar, president & chief distribution officer, DHFL.
DHFL is targeting customers in smaller cities where average ticket size of the loan around Rs 10.5 lakh. “The scenario is changing and demand will go up after the general elections 2014. The annual requirement of Pune residential market is of 56,000 units and considering the huge migrant population and the intense employment opportunities this expected to go up further,” he added.
He also added that there are supply constrains. For instance, urban India is short of 18.78 million homes while in rural areas the shortage is of about 43.9 million homes.
“The Indian housing industry is dominated by affordable housing for low income group. This segment is reporting attractive growth, especially in Tier-II and Tier -III cities where DHFL eyes maximum potential and opportunities. Going by this trend, our Pune presence enables reach to neighbouring locations within a 60 km radius. We are opening two sales points this year,” added Makkar.
Within Maharashtra, DHFL operates across almost all districts and focuses on the lower and middle income (LMI) segment. Within Maharashtra Mumbai as a centre is the largest contributor to DHFL’s business, while Pune contributes to over 40 per cent of the rest of Maharashtra business. DHFL today announced its Gudi Padwa offer of 0.25 per cent reduction in rate of interest and 25 per cent waiver on processing fees for home loans in Pune from March 24, 2014 to April 2, 2014.
