Affordable Housing

Affordable housing refers to housing units that can be afforded by the section of society whose income is below the median household income.

• The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) was launched in 2015 with the aim of building 2 crore affordable houses over a period of 7 years
• Budgetary allocation to PMAY was also significantly increased to Rs 33,000 crores in Budget 2018
• Earlier, in Budget 2017, affordable housing projects were granted ‘infrastructure status’, which lowered the cost of borrowing for developers
• Developers engaged in affordable housing projects do not have to pay GST and can claim 100% deductions on profits if they meet certain conditions

This smallcase consists of stocks from segments like housing finance companies focused on financing low and middle income segments, real estate developers constructing affordable houses and cement & building products companies.