RBI releases article on Recent Trends in Residential Property Prices in India for comments

The Reserve Bank of India placed on its website, an article titled ˜Recent Trends in Residential Property Prices in India: An exploration using housing loan data‘ based on the results of its ˜Residential Asset Price Monitoring Survey’. The Reserve Bank had initiated an information system on residential property prices through this survey, following the recommendations of the ˜Expert Group on Asset Price Monitoring System, 2010‘. The survey covers transaction level data on housing loans disbursed across select 13 cities, from select 35 scheduled commercial banks/housing finance companies. The property price data used in this analysis is the valuation price of the property as appraised by the concerned bank/ housing finance company (HFC). Based on the data compiled on a quarterly basis, a Residential Property Price Index (RPPI) is constructed for each city and at All-India level.

The salient findings of the survey covering housing loan transactions during Q1: 2009-10 to Q3: 2014-15 are:

1. Residential Property Price Index moved up to 172 in Q3:2014-15 from 107 in Q1:2010-11.

2. House price inflation, as measured by annual growth in RPPI, witnessed its peak during 2012-13 and has declined in the recent period.

3. The annual growth in RPPI and CPI-Housing Rent Index has been fairly similar in the last seven quarters.

4. Median Loan-to-Value ratio decreased over the last 5 year period; the proportion of housing loan transactions with higher Loan-to-Value ratio also reduced over the quarters.

5. Movements in median EMI-to-Income ratio, median House Price-to-Income ratio and median Loan-to-Income ratio, did not indicate any notable variation in housing affordability over the quarters.

The publication of this article is aimed to solicit comments/suggestions from various stakeholders for improvement in the survey and to generate discussion on methodology and usefulness of information, besides filling information gaps. Comments and suggestions may please be forwarded to the following address.

The Director, Division of Household Surveys, Department of Statistics and Information Management, Reserve Bank of India, C-8, 6th Floor, Bandra-Kurla Complex, Bandra (East), Mumbai-400051; Phone: 022-26578398, 022-26578332, Fax: 022-26571327; e-mail:.

Sangeeta Das
Director

Press Release : 2014-2015/2345