NBFC crisis may delay real estate's much-anticipated recovery

Besides the financial sector, the real estate business may also face the heat due to the ongoing crisis in NBFC sector, triggered by IL&FS default. "As on March 2018, NBFC's exposure towards real estate is 7.5 per cent accounting for Rs 1.65 lakh crore," real estate consultant Anarock Capital MD & CEO Shobhit Agarwal told media. "Post the banking systems freeze on real estate funding due to rising non-performing assets, NBFCs and HFCs are the sole source of funds for the cash-strapped developers," he said. The NBFC crisis needs to be resolved as soon as possible or the real estate sector's much-anticipated recovery will be postponed by a couple of quarters, Agarwal said. Now, NBFCs are struggling and their loan disbursals to developers have slowed down significantly, he said. The repayment burden is about 1.2 lakh crore (USD 16.3 billion) of commercial paper in October-December, near a record 1.46 lakh crore in August-October, according to available data. The consultant quoting Credit Suisse report said NBFCs and Housing Finance Companies (HFCs) have played a major role in credit supply in recent years, accounting for nearly 25-35 per cent of incremental overall credit. While bank credit growth in the last two years averaged at a mere seven per cent, a strong 20 percent-plus growth in NBFC credit aided overall credit expansion beyond 10 per cent