Moving Towards Transparency?

<p>&nbsp;</p><p><span class="dropthecap">O</span>ne more attempt has been made to track the not-so-transparent real estate market with the launch of the Real Estate Sensitivity Index (RESSEX) by Pankaj Kapoor-promoted property tracking firm Liases Foras. RESSEX will provide data through several verticals such as inventory (supply) index, sales-demand index, price index, which shows weighted average price against the unsold inventory, and business turnover index. The data will be collected in four survey months &mdash; June, September, December and March &mdash; which will be available in the updated index a month later. RESSEX promises to provide location-specific data across 400 locations in six cities covering as many as 10,000 projects. <br /><br />HDFC is supporting RESSEX to the extent it will help validate the data, says HDFC's joint managing director Renu Sud Karnad.<br /><br />This is not the first attempt at a realty index. The National Housing Bank already has a price-tracking index. However, most of the property data collection is done by broking firms such as CB Richard Ellis and Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj. Being active realty players, the credibility of their reports is suspect.<br /><br />Notably, the main stakeholders, developers and builders, are not forthcoming in providing sales and pricing data; Mumbai-based builder Niranjan Hiranandani concedes that builders have not opened up their books. So, data collection will continue to be a problem. Another round of realty firms going public might increase the pressure to have transparency.</p> <script type="text/javascript"> var intro = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#commenth4').text()) var page = jQuery.trim(jQuery('#storyPage').text()) if (page.indexOf(intro) < 0) { jQuery('#commenth4').attr('style', 'display:block;') } </script><div>(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-11-2009)</div>