THE RETURN OF THE NRI HOMEBUYER

NRIs have been buying premium flats, plots, villas and homes in retirement communities. What gives?

- Madhurima Nandy

Last April, Snigdha Basu and her husband Deep Basu flew to Kolkata from Singapore for the house-warming ceremony of their three-bedroom apartment, which they had registered the year before. It was the happy culmination of a journey that had seen them endure a bitter experience a decade earlier after purchasing their first flat. The couple had bought that apartment in the New Town area, as an investment, and to have their own place in a city they grew up in. It was a project by Unitech Ltd, and like many others by the developer, it wasn’t completed. Basu’s elder brother Prantik Banerjee (a Bangkok resident) and their Dubai-based cousin Chandrima Chowdhury had also booked homes in the Unitech project. They, too, never got possession of their homes.

Consequently, they shunned the property market in India for many years. Then the pandemic hit and the under-performing housing market took off. Non-resident Indians (NRIs), in particular, were cut off and unable to visit their families back home.

"In October 2021, we were in Kolkata for the first time since the pandemic and thought of buying a property again. We looked only at flats in South Kolkata that were close to possession. We booked a 3BHK in a condominium in Picnic Garden, in early 2022. Prices had started to rise and it was a good time to buy," Basu, 44, a banking professional, told Mint. Last year, her cousin Chowdhury booked an apartment in another project that was a year away from completion. Her brother is also looking out and plans to buy a home this year.