DLF to up NRI outreach; no significant impact of rate hikes on home sales yet
The country’s largest real estate player DLF has not seen any adverse impact of rate hikes on home demand yet; while the luxury segment is witnessing a clear shift towards larger homes. The company will look to up its NRI outreach, said Aakash Ohri, Goup Executive Director and Chief Business Officer of the company.
NRI investments in DLF projects are around 12-14 per cent and there is “potential to double”. This would lead to an “aggressive outreach” beginning November. Two such outreach were carried out recently in Dubai and Singapore.
Aggressive outreach
Speaking at the analyst conference call , post Q2FY23 results, Ohri said: “You will see an aggressive outreach starting November…December to February, there are a lot of NRIs who visit the country. So, I feel that is something that we would like to go, pitch in advance and then wait for them to make investments or come and do that.”
According to him, customers have preferred DLF over “other asset classes” and people are diluting their mutual funds or other Investments to “route their monies back into the new sales”.
“If I can give you an example of one of the recent launches, the bank mortgages or the call for that was just about 15 per cent, compared to what these guys have in hand ,” he explained adding that without completely negating the interest issue, there is a trend of “people consciously breaking or moving their other monies” towards the real estate major projects.
“So, the bank rates have been going up over the last two quarters also, but I think the customers are right now very focused in investing with us,” Ohri said.
New launches
According to him, “a lot of business is coming in from actual users”; and over the next one year there will be substantial pent-up demand to tap into. “I mean, I’m seeing the investors, but I am seeing them in lesser proportions,” he said.
For DLF, new sales bookings stood at ₹2,052 crore for Q2FY23, a y-o-y growth of 36 per cent. In H2 (October-March), the company plans to launch around 3 million sq ft.
Asked if the company would revise its sales guidance of ₹8000 crore (for FY23) and look to prepone some of the launches, Ohri said, the company remains cautious “given the environment”.
“We don’t know how everything is going to pan out, seeing what UK is going through and everything else. Yes, if there is opportunity to grab more, you have my assurance that we will leave no stone unturned. But, at this point of time, I think, in the external environment there are too many variables going on,” he added.
