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Rent by Price Ratio: Real Estate Valuation by Rent

Continuing our RealT valuation series, we now bring to you – Rent by Price ratio. In our post – “Valuation by Rental Prospects - Real Estate Valuations” we discussed how an individual should take into consideration the rental prospects while valuing a property. Today let’s discuss whether or not a prospective rent enough?

Facing dilemma: Which property to select?

Many a times, we get confused making choices between different assets. It becomes tough to select one from a choice of 2-3 properties. In such confusions, the decision is generally made based on only apparent features (aesthetics, size, location, ease of transaction etc.). To provide a rationale to this dilemma, we bring to you the concept of Rent by Price ratio (RP ratio).

Rent by Price Ratio (RP)

As is self-explanatory from its name, RP ratio means:

This gives you a fraction which can be used very effectively for evaluating more than one property together. To state in simple words, this ratio gives you the percentage of initial price that you can recover per annum by rental income.

How to make the choice?

Let’s take a scenario that you have a choice to make from among the following options:

Property	Prospective Rent	Price	RP Ratio
Prop1	INR 25,000 pm	INR 7.5 million	4.00%
Prop2	INR 20,000 pm	INR 5.5 million	4.36%

                                                         Source: Real Scenario of 2 properties in Hyderabad, India

As both the properties provide awesome investment opportunities and are located opposite to each other, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a choice among the 2.

But looking at the last column (RP ratio) in the above table, it becomes very clear that Prop2 provides a return of 4.36% against 4.00% of Prop1.

Hence it makes more sense to go for Prop2, than for Prop1.

Dilemma Solved, Decision Simplified B-)

Closing Thoughts: We formulated the above concept and analysis while facing a dilemma on making the choice on the above 2 properties only. This RP ratio provided us a yardstick to go for Prop2 & we followed it; you may not. It’s just indicative, not a sure shot approach to making decision.

------ Thanks for reading RealT Horizon J ------

G+2: An Emerging Real Estate Model

As we said in our earlier post that we went to the fields in Jaipur to explore this sector further, today we share with our readers a prevalent model in this space. During our visit to actual sites and meeting with various people closely associated with RealT, we came across a model that is highly prevalent in Tier 2 cities at present. Let’s share some insights on this topic.

What exactly is G+2?

Due to recent developments, Tier 2 cities have stringent land by-laws. These laws restrict unplanned and uneven growth of these cities which are on their way to become mega cities. One such by-law restricts the vertical growth of town to a certain limit, based on the size of plot and width of the road on which the plot is located.

A typical G+2 construction

Paying full respect the laws, Builders & Developers have devised an alternative to make optimum use of the available plot and have come up with the concept of Ground+2 floors. Now depending on the designs prepared by the Architect, Builder can erect 4-6 flats on that small piece of land. Generally these plans are designed in a way that there is ample space for parking of 4-6 vehicles alongside the building. If the dimensions of plot doesn’t allow ample parking space, Builder can even go for Stealth floor for parking. Even in this case, the next 3 floors will be counted as G+2.

G+2 with stealth floor

Benefits of G+2

• Ideal for mini-builders
• Cost of construction minimizes due to economies of scale (multiple constructions on the same piece of land)
• Pretty good profit margin
• Easy to sell
• Time-to-complete the project is small

Why is it lucrative for mini-builders?

Small Investors and new entrants prefer this model of RealT so much so that you would see hundreds of such projects going on in Jaipur all around. The reason being:

Low cost of Entry	These projects can be initiated with relatively small amount of money as compared to traditional huge projects.
Minimized Risk	Even if all the flats are not booked, the builder is safe as he is sitting on a valuable asset.
Funding Operational Costs	The operational costs of next floor can be funded by the bookings of previous floor.
Controlled Expansion	The builder is free to pull back from going deep into the project at any time.

Closing Remarks: Want to foray into Real Estate? – Go for the above model, but don’t forget to do a proper market analysis for demand side!

---- Thanks for reading. Your comments will help us improve our analysis. J ----

Financing - Funding a Real Estate Project

We got a feedback from some of our readers that our last post Ownership - Holding a RealT was a bit too much complicated to understand for a beginner. Totally respecting their valuable comments, we have tried to mellow down this post on RealT Financing (although the topic is way more complicated than the last one :-/).

What is Financing?

So coming back to the main business, the second level of Value Chain in Real Estate circumference – Financing. Just as you require money to pay for your household items, you need money to pay for your house (realty property) too. But financing a RealT deal is not as simple as buying vegetables down the street! More often than not, realty buyers need a proper plan, strategy and an agency to finance their dream projects. This is where this post originates J

How is Financing classified?

There are several ways in which a RealT deal can be financed. Typically all the ways can be classified under 2 heads – Equity & Debt.

To start with, we will cover the Debt portion in this post and try to explain the various options to raise finance through debt.

Debt

Debt, in literal sense means – “raising money from the market for a particular time horizon, at some interest rate”. Due to the advancement in the financial markets, many instruments have been developed to carry out this function. These instruments, if used rationally can benefit both lenders & borrowers, but improper use of such instruments can even lead to catastrophes like ‘Sub-prime crisis of 2008’.

Bank Loans

Raising money from a commercial bank is the easiest way for an individual investor. Banks offer attractive interest rates to the borrowers and are easily accessible. But this may not be the most effective way to finance a real estate deal due to the following reasons:

• Banks disburse loans for short-term
• The amount of disbursement depends on various factors like – individual’s net worth,  MPBF (maximum permissible bank fund), income statements, securitization etc.
• Indian Banks generally do not grant loans to a new real estate developer
• Banks generally do not grant loans on ‘land’ alone

Mortgages

Mortgage typically means taking loan from a party by pledging your property as a collateral against the loan. The mortgagee reserves full right to take a control over the pledged property in case of foreclosure (default, in simple terms).

Whatever you will read after this point is a bit complicated, but we have tried to simplify the concept as much as possible. Let’s see how much sense it makes. So, mortgages can be carried out in 2 ways:

Mortgage Broker:

The whole idea of Mortgage Broking is depicted in the above figure. Few points about this process:

• Brokers are independent agencies, having tie-ups with fund providers
• Fund providers generally prefer these brokers so that the borrower is already researched for credit worthiness
• Mortgage brokers are generally not involved in ‘loan servicing’
• They don’t use their own capital to fund the borrowers

Mortgage Banker:

These are specialized agencies which provides mortgages directly to the borrowers, using their own capital. These agencies do not accept deposits from the public, rather makes money from the loan origination fees & servicing fees.

They typically packages the loans & sell them to the institutional buyers or government sponsored enterprises in secondary markets. In US, there are Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae to carry out these functions while in India there is no such institution yet for this function. The nearest equivalent that can be thought of is Mortgage Risk Guarantee Fund.

We know that this has become a bit too much complicated to understand, but the following diagram may relieve our brain nerves a bit ;-)

So the whole process of Secondary Markets is depicted in the above figure. It shows step by step process followed by the loans to finally reach the borrower.

Note: We understand that this post has been a bit too much complicated. Please feel free to write to us in case you need any explanations on any of the above topics. The remaining portion of financing by equity will be covered in our next post. Stay tuned!!

----- Keep Reading RealT Horizon J -----

                       

Understanding the reality in RealT – Generic Real Estate Value Chain

As soon as I sat down to pen the first post for RealT Horizon, I was bombarded with several areas of concern which need to be addressed here. To start with, I decided to go with the basics. So let’s look at the overview of the Value Chain of this sector.

Real Estate Value Chain typically comprises of 5 broad levels:

Figure 1: Broad levels of Real Estate Value Chain

These 5 steps more-or-less comprise all the possible activities that one can associate with the development and transaction of a property. Of course some of the blocks shown above do interchange their positions sometimes, depending on the usage category. I will try to touch on that aspect later, or in the following posts. But before that, the usage categories:

Whether the 5 levels shown in figure 1 will remain intact or some of them will get merged or eliminated depends totally on the 3 usage categories. If, for instance, the category is ‘Residential’ and that too for single housing, probably the ‘Transactions’ level can be skipped.

Let me dig a little deeper in the value chain. If expanded, the chain will take the following shape:

Figure 2: Detailed Generic Real Estate Value Chain

As can be seen in the above figure, each level can be further fragmented into several components. This is the multiplicity that results in all the complexities that this sector is facing currently in India and probably in various other developing nations.

This sector needs treatment, and it will be possible only if there is a subtle understanding of its basics ingrained in all the investors. I will cover all the components individually in my future posts. So stay tuned and pour in your comments & suggestions to help me analyze RealT Sector more effectively!

Forward detailed links to each level:

• Ownership - Holding a RealT
• Financing - Funding a RealT
• Financing the RealT by Equity
• Construction of a RealT Project
• Transacting & Using your RealT

- - - - -  Thanks for reading J   - - - - -