People are in wait-and-watch mode: Tata Housing on realty sector

Real estate prices will not fall because of demonetisation, but there has been some negative impact on buyer sentiments, says Tata Housing Managing Director Brotin Bannerjee.People are in wait-and-watch mode, says Bannerjee. He does not expect the prices to fall. The company has 36 projects in the pipeline and is looking to complete multiple phases of projects next year.Tata Housing is not looking to raise extra funds for construction and is looking to take advantage of interest rate cuts and swap out expensive debt. It has already reduced debt by Rs 400-500 crore.Below is the verbatim transcript of Brotin Bannerjee's interview to Kevin Lee on CNBC-TV18. Q: Has demonetisation impacted the realty sector? A: This demonetisation has led to a lot of negative sentiments being created because a large number of people who have said that prices are going to crash – going to crash significantly, which I don’t think will happen and that has led to a period of wait and watch by most consumers. Q: Talking about Tata Housing specifically how many projects are currently in the pipeline, what’s your inventory like and what does your debt look like? A: We are about 36 projects in different phases and projects across India. We believe that many of these projects – this year we will be handing over to consumers close to 6,000 units. We have private equity backing us for two new platforms; one in the affordable housing category and one in the premium segment – so no fresh fund to raise new debt or more debt, but what we are doing is we are certainly taking advantage of the interest rates going down and we are swapping relatively higher interest debt with lower interest rate. Q: Any plans to reduce this debt further, any target that you have set for yourself in the next fiscal year to reduce your debt? A: We have already reduced to about Rs 400-500 crore. We want to reduce another Rs 500 crore this fiscal.