A top Indian developer is enticing Indians living abroad to buy luxury apartments as a way of investing into one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
DLF Ltd. has boosted its outreach to so-called non-resident Indians, said Aakash Ohri, joint managing director and chief business officer. NRIs purchased 20% of all homes sold by DLF between April-September, up from 15% in the previous financial year, with most demand coming from the US, UK, Singapore and Gulf region, he added.
“NRIs have always been our clients but if the NRI business was organic earlier, now it is a part of concerted efforts on how to better capture this growth story,” Ohri said during an interview last week at DLF’s luxurious golf course near New Delhi. “Now I have a dedicated team who are in constant touch with NRIs. I want to be the first person they call if they want to invest in India.”
NRI savings in India rose to about $189 billion in 2022, accounting for some 7% of the total domestic retail investments, according to Private Banker International. DLF and rivals including Macrotech Developers Ltd. and Rustomjee Constructions Pvt. are all trying to win a piece of the pie.
DLF has started reserving inventories in all new launches for the Indian diaspora since last year to ensure they get to choose at the same time as local buyers, Ohri said. The Gurugram-based firm aims to launch luxury projects worth around 200 billion rupees ($2.4 billion) in the year through March 2024 with sale bookings of 120 billion rupees.
Earlier this year, DLF had sold 1,137 apartments costing almost a million dollars each in just three days.
Asia’s third-largest economy is seeming increasingly attractive for wealthier investors amid slowing global growth, even as higher mortgage rates deter lower-cost home purchases.
