Month: July 2015 | Page 2

29 July, 2015

Of film critics and their love for Bajrangi Bhaijaan

One of my favourite armchair theories is built around film critics and Salman Khan—the more the critics hate a Salman Khan movie, the more money the movie tends to make. It doesn’t work all the time, but it works often enough to at least be categorised as an armchair theory.

The superstar’s movies get regularly panned by film critics, and yet they end up making a lot of money. Now that doesn’t mean that the critics are wrong about what they think of Salman’s movies. They are actually quite trashy. An apt comparison are the movies that Amitabh Bachchan starred in the 1980s. Movies like Nastik, Mahaan, Pukar, Desh Premee, Mard, Coolie, Geraftaar, Jadugar and Toofan.

Most of these movies made a lot of money nevertheless they are completely unwatchable now, unless you are a die-hard fan to whom the quality of the movie doesn’t really matter. Bachchan’s bubble finally burst with Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswati, which I think is the trashiest film ever made.

Khan’s bubble is still going strong and it was rather surprising that critics liked his latest film Bajrangi Bhaijaan. And these are not the trade critics whose reviews depend on what kind of business the movie they are reviewing is likely to do. These are critics who are genuinely in love with cinema. And they seem to have liked Bajrangi Bhaijaan and the movie has received a spate of ratings of 3 out of five stars.

So what were these guys smoking? How come so many film critics had nice things to say about a Salman Khan movie? Why have things changed this time around? The answer might perhaps lie in what economists call the contrast effect. Comparison comes naturally to human beings especially when they are making a decision. In such a situation, a particular option can be made to be look better by comparing it with something which is similar, but at the same time a worse alternative. This is known as the ‘contrast effect’.

As Barry Schwartz writes in The Paradox of Choice—Why More is Less: “If a person comes right out of a sauna and jumps into a swimming pool, the water in the pool feels really cold, because of the contrast between the water temperature and the temperature in the sauna. Jumping into the same pool after having just come indoors on a sub-zero winter day will produce sensations of warmth.”

This is the contrast effect and it best explains why film critics have fallen in love with Salman’s latest movie. How is that? Look at the movies Salman has starred in the recent past: Jai Ho, Kick, Dabanng 2, Bodyguard etc. Each one of these movies was pretty trashy. In comparison, Bajrangi Bhaijaan is a slightly better movie with some sort of a storyline and very good performances by the child artist Harshali Malhotra(who the audience has fallen in love with) and as well as Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

Hence, this contrast effect between the earlier movies of Salman and Bajrangi Bhaijaan has led to good reviews. In fact, a similar contrast effect was at work when Ek Tha Tiger had released in 2012. The movie was better than some of Salman’s earlier releases like Veer, Ready, London Dreams etc. And the critics had similarly given it good ratings.

There is another learning here. Bajrangi Bhaijaan has been breaking box-office records. As I write this, the movie has already made close to Rs 200 crore on the Indian box-office. Over and above Salman’s fans who watch every movie of his, however trashy it might be, the non-fans have also been streaming into the theatres because of the good reviews that the movie has universally received.

And what this tells us is that if Salman stars in even half decent movies they are likely to earn much more money than the trash that he chooses to star in. Hope he is reading this.

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He can be reached at [email protected])

The column originally appeared in the Bangalore Mirror on July 29, 2015

29 July, 2015

Taking a home loan? This is how dual financing by banks might hurt you

Paul Volcker, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States, the American central bank, is once said to have remarked: “the only thing useful banks have invented is the ATM”. I would like to add “home-loans” to the list as well.

Home loans allow people to buy a home at a point of time in life when they are really not in a financial position to buy a home by making the entire payment upfront from their savings. Home loans allow individuals to buy a home and repay the loan over a period of time.

This essentially ensures that an individual can enjoy the benefits of owning a home much earlier in life than if he would have had to simply depend on accumulating enough money to buy a home.

But what if the home loan turns into a nightmare? And believe me it can. How, you may ask?

In the recent past, there have been many cases of builders collecting the money from prospective buyers and disappearing. This, other than leading to a situation where a buyer does not get the home he has already paid for, also leads to other problems.

Let’s try and understand this through an example. A builder wants to build apartments on a piece of land that he owns. He offers this land as a collateral to a bank and takes on a loan. After he has taken on the loan from the bank he starts marketing the project and starts collecting money from the prospective buyers as well. The buyers who want a home to live in, obviously take on home loans to pay the builder.

The builder is supposed to complete the project by a certain date, but doesn’t complete the project. At the same time he defaults on the loan he had taken on from the bank. The buyers are stuck because their homes are nowhere near completion. And there is another problem.

The builder before marketing the project had taken on a loan from the bank against the land on which apartments were to be built. What happens after that? The buyers take on home loans offering the apartments that are being built on that land as a collateral.

What is happening here? Basically the same asset has been offered as a collateral twice. But given that the builder took the loan first, the first charge is created in favour of the bank which gave the loan to the builder. A first charge ensures that the loan given by the bank to the builder takes precedence over the home loans that have been taken on against the same collateral.

What happens next? The bank which gave the loan to the builder goes after the collateral following the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act (SARFESAI Act).

What happens to the buyers? They will have to fight a legal battle trying to establish their ownership over the apartments. Meanwhile, they will have to continue paying their EMIs on the home loans that they had taken on. If they stop paying their EMIs, their banks will come after their other assets. In India, home loans are recourse i.e. the banks can go after the other assets of the borrower as well, other than the asset offered as a collateral, in order to recover their loan.

This situation is referred to as “dual-finance”, where multiple loans have been taken against the same collateral. This leaves the home-buyers in a total mess. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) does not allow primary urban cooperative banks (UCBs) to carry out this kind of lending. As the Master Circular- Finance for Housing Schemes – UCBs points out: “The builders / contractors generally require huge funds, take advance payments from the prospective buyers or from those on whose behalf construction is undertaken and, therefore, they may not normally require bank finance for the purpose. Any financial assistance extended to them by primary (urban) co-operative banks may result in dual financing. The banks should, therefore, normally refrain from sanctioning loans and advances to this category of borrowers.”

The term to mark here is “dual financing”. The situation is exactly similar to the example that I took earlier in the column. The problem is that while the urban cooperative banks are not allowed to carry out dual financing, there is nothing that stops scheduled commercial banks from doing the same.

As the Master Circular—Housing Finance for scheduled commercial banks points out: “In view of the important role played by professional builders as providers of construction services in the housing field, especially where land is acquired and developed by State Housing Boards and other public agencies, commercial banks may extend credit to private builders on commercial terms by way of loans linked to each specific project. However, the banks are not permitted to extend fund based or non-fund based facilities to private builders for acquisition of land even as part of a housing project.”
The phrase to mark in the above paragraph is that: “commercial banks may extend credit to private builders on commercial terms by way of loans linked to each specific project.” This is something that the RBI does not allow urban cooperative banks to do. The moment a bank is lending against a specific project, the collateral offered by the builder to take on the loan is the same as the collateral that will be offered by prospective buyers who will borrow home loans from banks in the days to come.

And this creates the problem of dual financing. In the recent past, there have been many cases of builders disappearing and leaving buyers in a lurch. Interestingly, the RBI Master Circular on housing finance points out: “In a case which came up before the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay, the Hon’ble Court observed that the bank granting finance to housing / development projects should insist on disclosure of the charge / or any other liability on the plot, in the brochure, pamphlets etc., which may be published by developer / owner inviting public at large to purchase flats and properties.”

Hence, banks need to make sure that builder tells the prospective buyers very clearly that he has already borrowed money against the land on which apartments are being built. Further the circular also points out: “While granting finance to specific housing / development projects, banks are advised to stipulate as a part of the terms and conditions that: (i) the builder / developer / company would disclose in the Pamphlets / Brochures etc., the name(s) of the bank(s) to which the property is mortgaged. (ii) the builder / developer / company would append the information relating to mortgage while publishing advertisement of a particular scheme in newspapers / magazines etc.”

The point being that the builder has to communicate very clearly that he has borrowed money against the project from a bank(s). As the Master Circular points out: “Banks are also advised to ensure compliance of the above terms and conditions and funds should not be released unless the builder/developer/company fulfils the above requirements.”

While, this sounds very good on paper, such disclosures are rarely made. And my guess is that even if they are made, there are not many buyers going around who have the wherewithal to understand these things. Further, at the point of buying a home there are so many terms and conditions that a buyer has to go through that it is worth asking whether it is possible to mentally process and understand everything.

In this scenario, it is important that the RBI works towards stopping this practice of dual financing and making life slightly easier for a prospective home buyer.

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek)

The column originally appeared on Firstpost on July 28, 2015

28 July, 2015

A few confessions on real estate forecasting

In the recent past I have written quite a few columns on real estate. In some of these columns I have clearly said that I expect the real estate prices to continue to fall in the time to come.

In response to this point a question that gets often asked is: “Should I buy a home now?” This is a very difficult question to answer, given that it has zero information built into it. It doesn’t tell me where the person asking the question is based out of. Does he want to a buy a home to live in? Or is he looking to invest? Further, what is the financial situation of the individual? So on and so forth.

I will try and answer this question in today’s column in a fairly general sort of way. If you are looking to invest in real estate this clearly is not the time to invest, given that the prices are falling and the return over the last one year has been extremely subdued. The time to invest in real estate will come once the prices have fallen from the current levels.

How about buying a home to live in? That really depends on your financial position and how stable you are in the current rented accommodation you are living in. If the landlord is likely to let you continue to live, then it is best to wait it out. You will definitely get a better deal in the days to come.

If he is not and you have enough money going around then it is best to buy a home. Obviously, you need to ensure that you aren’t using up all your savings in making the down-payment and stretching your home loan limit to the hilt. While you will end up paying more now than if you were to buy a home somewhere down the line, there will be other happier things to look forward to.

The social pressure that comes with not owning a house will go away. The child (or children) will have a more stable environment to live in. And given these reasons, if you have the money and need a home to live in, it makes sense to go ahead and buy one.

All this comes with a small caveat—if you are thinking of buying a home in the National Capital Territory, be very careful. As Santhosh Kumar, CEO – Operations & International Director, JLL India recently wrote: “The National Capital Region (NCR) has some locations that buyers are best advised to avoid. Various issues like delays in delivery, oversupply, speculation and infrastructure deficit have been plaguing these markets, rendering them unsuitable for first-time home purchase.”

Another question that is often asked is: “By when do you think price of real estate will fall dramatically?” This remains a very tricky question to answer because there is no credible price-volume data going around on Indian real estate. (i.e. how many homes were sold and what at price).

The only real estate data that is available at the agglomerated level is supplied by real estate consultants. The trouble is that these consultants make more money when the real estate sector is doing well i.e. prices are on their way up. Given that, even though the data supplied by them is showing excessive inventory of unsold homes and more or less flat prices on an average across the country, the actual situation might be much worse (which means the crash in real estate prices might happen sooner rather than later, but this cannot be said for sure).

Further, the data supplied by real estate consultants is at best limited to metropolitan cities. Given that, there is almost no information about the price-volume trend of real estate beyond the top cities in the country. So how does one predict, when will prices fall dramatically all across the country without much data?
Further, the real estate indices that India are not “real time” enough. The two main indices put out by the National Housing Bank and the Reserve Bank of India, are really not up-to-date.

Then there is the biggest variable of them all: black money. How does one figure out whether the total amount of black money going into real estate has gone up or come down? In this scenario one can make educated guesses from the data that is available and anecdotal evidence that keeps coming in.

An interesting experiment was carried out by a friend of mine recently. He called up several real estate brokers from two different numbers. On the first call he pretended to be a buyer and was told “Sir, daam abhi bhi badh raha hai (the price is still going up).” On the second call he pretended to be a seller and was told “Sir, there are no buyers in the market.” What conclusion can we draw from this? I leave that up to you.

As far as black money is concerned, the situation in National Capital Region, makes for an interesting reading. As analysts Saurabh Mukherjea and Sumit Shekhar of Ambit write in a recent research report titled Real Estate: The unwind and its side effects: “In Delhi, the ratio of unaccounted value of real estate transactions to the total value is as high as 78%. The same ratio is 50% in Kolkata and Bangalore. In smaller towns and semi urban centres, nearly 100% of property transactions are conducted in cash.”

Hence, among the bigger cities, the maximum amount of black money goes into real estate in Delhi and the National Capital Region. And this I feel has been coming down. The real estate rating and research agency Liases Foras estimates that the National Capital Region had an unsold home inventory of 71 months (the real situation might be worse) as on March 31, 2015. This means that if sales continue at the current pace it would need another 71 months to sell the existing number of unsold homes. An inventory of eight to 12 months is considered healthy.

What this huge inventory clearly tells us is that the amount of black money coming into real estate has come down in the National Capital Region and this is good news for genuine buyers who want homes to live in.

Over and above this, the real estate prices have run up way beyond what most Indians can afford. And once you take this into account, prices are bound to fall. This becomes very clear from the point that rental yields are now as low as 2% (again a data point provided by real estate consultants and given that the situation might be worse). Rental yield is essentially annual rent that can be earned from a home divided by its market price. No market can keep working beyond a point without catering to what the customers really want.

All these reasons, lead me to believe that real estate prices will continue to fall in the days to come. Though please don’t ask me when will they crash? Because I really don’t know.

This is one of those funny situations where one will be partially wrong till one is proven right. All I can say to conclude is: stay tuned!

The column originally appeared on The Daily Reckoning on July 28, 2015

27 July, 2015

The Gajendra Chauhan syndrome: Why politicians are trying to take over RBI

Vivek Kaul

The politicians are at it again—trying to fill up their people everywhere. The latest casualty of what I will call the Gajendra Chauhan syndrome of Indian politics, is likely to be the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

During the course of last week, the revised draft of the Indian Financial Code (IFC) was released by the ministry of finance, which is currently headed by Arun Jaitley. Among other things the draft also recommends curtailing the powers of the governor of the RBI. RBI is probably the last institution remaining in the country which still has a mind of its own, and does not toe the government line on all occasions.

As things currently stand, the monetary policy decisions are made the governor of the RBI. John Lanchester in his book How to Speak Money writes: “Monetary means to do with interest rates, and is controlled by the central bank.” Hence, the RBI governor currently decides whether to raise or bring down the repo rate, the interest rate at which the RBI lends to banks. This rate acts as a sort of a benchmark to the interest rates at which banks borrow and lend.
The RBI governor currently makes the monetary policy decisions. He has a technical advisory committee assisting him. Nevertheless, the governor can overrule the committee. World over, this is not how things work. The interest rate decisions of central banks are made by monetary policy committees.

So, the Indian Financial Code wants to move the monetary policy decision making to a monetary policy committee. This makes immense sense given the extremely complicated world that we live in, it is simply not possible for one man (the RBI governor) to understand everything happening in the world around us and make suitable decisions.

This is something that the RBI also agrees with. In a report titled Report of the Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework (better known as the Urjit Patel committee) released by the RBI in January 2014 it was pointed out: “Drawing on international experience, the evolving organizational structure in the context of the specifics of the Indian situation and the views of earlier committees, the Committee is of the view that monetary policy decision-making should be vested in a monetary policy committee.”

On the broad point both the RBI and the ministry of finance which is responsible for the Indian Financial Code are in agreement. It is the specifics that they differ on. As per the Urijit Patel Committee report the monetary policy committee should have five members. As the report pointed out: “The Governor of the RBI will be the Chairman of the monetary policy committee, the Deputy Governor in charge of monetary policy will be the Vice Chairman and the Executive Director in charge of monetary policy will be a member. Two other members will be external, to be decided by the Chairman and Vice Chairman on the basis of demonstrated expertise and experience in monetary economics, macroeconomics, central banking, financial markets, public finance and related areas.”

Hence, the monetary policy committee in the RBI’s scheme of things would have two outside members to be chosen by the RBI governor and the deputy governor in-charge of the monetary policy. The government would have no say in it. This makes immense sense given that world over there is a clear division between the fiscal function and the monetary function. As Lanchester writes in How to Speak Money: “Fiscal means to do with tax and spending, and is controlled by the government.” Monetary, as explained earlier, is controlled by the central bank.

The revised draft of the Indian Financial Code on the other hand talks about a seven member monetary policy committee. Article 256 of the code points out: “The Monetary Policy Committee will comprise – (a) the Reserve Bank Chairperson as its chairperson; (b) one executive member of the Reserve Bank Board nominated by the Re- 20 serve Bank Board; (c) one employee of the Reserve Bank nominated by the Reserve Bank Chairperson; and (d) four persons appointed by the Central Government.”

What does this mean? As per the Indian Financial Code the government will have the right to appoint 4 members in the seven member monetary policy committee. This is a clear attempt by the government to take over the monetary policy from the RBI.

Why does the government want a majority in a committee that decides on the monetary policy of the country? The answer is fairly straightforward. Politicians all over the world want lower interest rates all the time. And this is not possible if the central bank is independent. Since May 2014, the finance minister Arun Jaitley has been publicly pushing for lower interest rates, but the RBI hasn’t always obliged.

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States, recounts in his book The Map and the Territory that in his more than 18 years as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, he did not receive a single request from the US Congress urging the Fed to tighten money supply and thus not run an easy money policy.

In simple English, what Greenspan means is that the American politicians always wanted low interest rates. India is no different on that front. Arun Jaitley has talked about the RBI working towards lower interest rates almost every month since May 2014, when the Narendra Modi government came to power.
Politicians look at the economy in a very simplistic way—if interest rates are lower, people will borrow and consume more, businesses will do better and the economy will grow at a faster rate. And this will increase the chances of their getting re-elected. But things are not as simple as that.

The link between low interest rates and economic growth is weak. As Barry P. Bosworth points out in a research paper published by the Brookings Institute: “there is only a weak relationship between real interest rates and economic growth.” Hence, keeping interest rates does not lead to economic growth necessarily. On the flip side, lower interest rates do lead to massive asset price bubbles as has been seen in the aftermath of the financial crisis that started in September 2008. Bubbles aren’t good for any economy.

Further, the trouble is that politicians (or their appointees) asking for lower interest rates are often batting for their businessmen friends. As the current RBI governor had said in a February 2014: “what about industrialists who tell us to cut rates? I have yet to meet an industrialist who does not want lower rates, whatever the level of rates.”

Also, the draft of the Indian Financial Code does not seem to take into account the agreement entered by the RBI and the government earlier this year. As per this agreement, the RBI will aim to bring down inflation below 6% by January 2016. From 2016-2017 onwards, the rate of inflation will have to be between 2% and 6%.
Now how is the RBI supposed to meet this target with a monetary policy committee dominated by members appointed by the government? And who are more likely to bat for low interest rates rather than what is the right thing to do at a given point of time.

To conclude, I have a feeling that the finance ministry bureaucrats obviously want to control things and that explains the monetary policy committee structure that they have come up with in the revised draft of the Indian Financial Code. Given that, the Indian Financial Code is still a draft, the final version as and when it comes up, will be somewhere in between what the RBI wants and what the ministry of finance wants.

I sincerely hope it tilts more towards the RBI than the ministry of finance. We don’t need any more Gajendra Chauhans.

(Vivek Kaul is the writer of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek)

The column originally appeared on Firstpost on July 27, 2015

24 July, 2015

Will home loans be the next big worry for banks?

Vivek Kaul

I am amazed at the strong belief that people have that real estate prices will never fall. Every time I write a column on real estate readers get back to me with newer theories on why I am wrong. A new theory that was put forward(actually it is not so new, just that no one had come back to me with this theory for a while) to me on Twitter was that the government won’t allow real estate prices to fall.

To this another Twitter follower replied by saying that if real estate prices can fall in China(where the government is far bigger and has a lot more control over things than in India) then they can fall in India as well. Guess that is a fair point.

Anyway, this column is really not about why real estate prices will fall (in fact they have already started to fall). That bit I am already convinced about, I just need to keep reiterating it for the benefits of the believers who don’t see it coming.

What I am worried about is what will happen in the aftermath of home prices falling. Banks clearly have a reason to worry. And here is why.

Every month the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) puts out data regarding the sectoral deployment of credit by scheduled commercial banks operating in the country. For a period of one year ending May 29, 2015, the total lending by banks grew by 8.5% to Rs 61,51,600 crore. During the same period, the total amount of home loans given by banks grew by 17.1% to Rs 6,48,400 crore.

Now compare this to what happened during the period of one year ending May 30, 2014. The overall bank lending had grown by 12.7% to Rs 56,684,00 crore. In comparison the total amount of home loan given out by banks had grown at a similar 17% to Rs 5,53,800 crore.

If we go back a year further to May end 2013, the overall growth in bank lending had stood at 15.3% whereas home loans grew by 18.4%. (Actually the period here is a little more than a year, between May 18, 2012 and May 31, 2013).

What this clearly tells us is that even though the overall growth of lending by banks has considerably slowed down, the growth in home loan lending continues at almost the same pace. What conclusion can be draw here? The RBI does not give out the total number of home loans that banks are giving out. Neither does it tell us the average size of a home loan.

Nevertheless, one explanation for home loans continuing to grow can be that the increase in the price of homes has also led to the increase in the average size of home loans.

What happens if we look at the data a little differently? Over the one year period ending May 29, 2015, the total lending of Indian banks grew by Rs 4,83,210 crore. During the same period the total amount of home loans grew by Rs 94,590 crore. Hence, home loans constituted around 19.6% of bank lending during the last one year.

What was the scene a year back? For the one year period ending May 30, 2014, the total lending of Indian banks grew by Rs 6,40,570 crore. Home loans had grown by Rs 80,260 crore during the same period. Hence, home loans constituted 12.5% of the lending during the course of the period.

For the period of one year ending May 31, 2013, home loans constituted around 11% of the overall lending by banks. (As mentioned earlier, the period here was a little more than a year, between May 18, 2012 and May 31, 2013).

Now what does this tell us? With overall bank lending slowing down, banks have increasingly become dependent on home loans. As Deepak Shenoy of Capital Mind puts it: “the demand for housing loans is pretty much the only game in town for the banks.”

Home loans were formed 11% of the total loans given out during the period of one year ending May 2013. This number jumped to 12.5% during the period of one year ending May 2014. And for the period of one year ending May 2015, home loans amounted to 19.6% of the overall portfolio. Things get even more complicated once we look at the divide between priority sector home loans and other home loans. Home loans of up to Rs 25 lakh get categorised as priority sector loans.

For the period of one year ending May 29, 2015, priority sector home loans grew by just 4.9%. On the other hand home loans of value greater than Rs 25 lakh grew by 32.2%. Hence, higher value home loans are growing at a significantly faster rate. For the period of one year ending May 30, 2014, priority sector home loans had grown by a much faster 8.7%. The home loans greater than Rs 25 lakh had grown by around 29.1%.

The problem is that with the real estate bubble starting to loose fizz banks are likely to face the next spate of bad loans from the home loans that they have given out. I might be jumping the gun here a little, but the numbers show an increasing dependence of banks on home loans and that is clearly not a good sign.

As the analysts Saurabh Mukherjea and Sumit Shekhar of Ambit write in a recent research report titled Real Estate: The unwind and its side effects: “Over the last decade, the combined real estate portfolios of banks and NBFCs have increased at a CAGR[compounded annual growth rate] of ~20%. A breakup of this growth between value and volume shows that two-thirds of this growth has been driven by increased ticket sizes (due to the continued increase in ticket sizes), and volume growth for the sector has been relatively modest at ~8-9% CAGR over the last 10 years.”

This is going to change in the days to come. As Mukherjea and Shekhar write: “Housing finance companies/banks would be an obvious casualty if real estate prices correct.”

Disclosure: The idea for writing this column came after reading Capital Mind’s research report titled Bank NPAs Show Alarming Signs, Add to Woes of the Sector

The column originally appeared on The Daily Reckoning on July 24, 2015