NHB looks at rating of intermediaries in housing finance

National Housing Bank plans to introduce ratings for intermediaries involved in the housing finance market, Chairman and Managing Director S Sridhar said on Thursday.

“The next step would be training and rating the various market intermediaries, involved in housing finance and housing itself, which is underway,” he said. Sridhar said that NHB aimed to make the housing market more stable and efficient and hoped its initiatives would ensure the various market intermediaries involved were reasonably regulated, if not by legislative processes, then by market forces.

“Another thing is to finalise standards of valuations of residential projects, which will be shortly approved by IBA committee and then made applicable to all mortgage lenders,” he said. Sridhar said NHB would ensure compliance by housing finance companies, while IBA would garner consensus amongst banks.

In the last five to six years, housing finance in the country had grown at a compound annual growth rate of 40 per cent, although the rise in the number of accounts or homes sold was 11-12 per cent, indicating the appreciation in the prices of houses, he said.

“We are now seeing increasingly a secondary market developing in housing loans, in addition to the primary market. The Reserve Bank of India is also recognising this phenomenon and has been modifying the rules and regulation on securitisation of assets,” he said.

Sridhar expressed hope that the secondary market would continue to develop and get more refined in the future.