Greater Noida Tops in Stalled Housing

With over 5 lakh undelivered under-construction homes across India, Greater Noida has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of undelivered residential units. Significantly, Tier-2 cities have double the number of stalled homes in Tier-1 cities.

One in five under-construction homes totalling over 5 lakh units have not been delivered as 1,981 projects across 44 cities are stalled in the last 8 years. The remaining 4 out of 5 under-constructed homes have been delivered after a substantial delay of 3-4 years, according to data analytics firm PropEquity.

The extensive city-wise data of PropEquity says that the number of stalled units have risen to 5,08,202, a rise of approximately 9 percent from 4,65,555 units in 2018.

According to the data, 1,636 projects totalling 4,31,946 units in 14 tier I cities and 345 projects totalling 76,256 units in 28 tier II cities have been stalled. Greater Noida in tier I with 74,645 units and Bhiwadi in tier II with 13,393 units top the list.

Greater Noida, among tier I cities, saw the highest proportion of stalled units at 17 percent (74,645 units in 167 projects), followed by Thane and Gurugram with 13 percent  (57,520 units in 186 projects) and 12 percent (52,509 units in 158 projects) respectively. Mumbai has a maximum number of 234 stalled projects followed by Bengaluru with 225 projects and Thane with 186 projects.

According to Samir Jasuja, Founder and CEO at PropEquity, the problem of stalled projects and the subsequent rise is due to the lack of execution capabilities of developers, cash flow mismanagement and diversion of funds to buy new land banks or retire other loans. The need of the hour is an independent third-party audit service for homebuyers to empower them to make an informed decision about the developers’ capabilities to complete the project on time.”

To address the issue of stalled projects, the government launched the Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH) Fund in November 2019. Till date, the SWAMIH Fund has raised ₹15,530 crores to complete all stalled projects. However, in the last five years, only approximately 32,000 units have been completed. The Fund aims to deliver 20,000 homes every year for the next three years.

Real estate disputes, according to Jasuja have been rising. To add to this, the backlog of stalled projects and the addition of new ones have put the onus on homebuyers to do their due diligence through professional experts before buying a house.

The data paints a gloomy picture in tier II cities with regard to stalled projects.

Bhiwadi has a maximum share of 18 percent  (13,393 units in 33 projects) of stalled units followed by Lucknow and Jaipur with 17 percent (13,024 units in 48 projects) and 13 percent (9,862 units in 37 projects). Lucknow has the maximum number of 48 stalled projects followed by Jaipur and Bhiwadi with 37 projects and 33 projects respectively.