Views from Mani Rangarajan, Group Chief Operating Officer- Housing.com- Proptiger.com- Makaan.com- Fastfox on RBI’s monetary policy announcement

New Delhi, August 10, 2019: “While the industry largely expected a rate cut of 25 bps, the RBI reduced its repo rate by 35 bps to 5.4%, making this its fourth consecutive rate cut since February 2019. This cumulative 110 bps rate cut in the last four policy reviews, comes at a strategic timing since the sector is waiting for the festive season to hopefully boost sales and sentiment. How far these rate cuts will succeed in spurring consumption, is something only time will tell. However there’s no denying that in the mid-income and affordable housing segments which are very price sensitive, these rate cuts, can boost sentiment and sales, provided they are passed on to the end-users by the banks. We are hopeful of the same as the RBI has been nudging banks to reduce their interest rates and certain banks have started passing on the rate cut benefits to their new and existing customers. We also believe that the limit for priority sector lending for housing, which has been enhanced from Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 20 lakhs, will bode well for the affordable housing segment.”

Corporate Comm India (CCI Newswire)