Second SWAMIH Fund may find fewer takers as property sales remain robust

THE SECOND SPECIAL Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH) Fund could find less takers than the first one, given the buoyancy in property sales, say lenders, developers and consultants.

- RAGHAVENDRA KAMATH

In the Union Budget presented on Saturday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed that the SWAMIH Fund II will be set up with a ₹15,000-crore allocation to help complete an additional 100,000 housing units. The fund is aimed at completing stuck housing projects.

"The need for money has come down (from stressed projects)," said Amit Bagri, chief executive officer at Kotak Mahindra Investments, adding that buoyant property markets have solved a lot of problems.

Residential prices in places such as Noida have gone up by ₹3,000 per square feet, pushing up valuations and nudging institutional investors to back residential projects, Bagri said.

"Now, there are issues which money can't solve such as land issues, legal disputes and so on, where even SWAMIH cannot do anything," he added.