Due to global uncertainties and high returns it has fetched in the past, India has been a hot bed for property investments by NRIs, says Ganesh Vasudevan, CEO, indiaproperty. In reality, NRIs invariably look for homes close to their native places or places of future economic growth. The former makes it easier for them to keep an eye on their property and also gives them mental satisfaction of owning a house they can come back to. The latter ensures a decent return as and when they need to unlock the investment.

Feeling the plunge of piled inventories, usually developers market the high-end super luxury projects to NRIs. All the marketing jargon practiced by the developers target NRIs, by showing them ultra-modern, spacious, hi-tech houses promising a king sized life back home.

All real estate companies - big or small have a dedicated team focused on the NRI market with a large part of their marketing spend assigned to try and woo them. We have seen Puravankara Projects recently opening an office in Saudi Arabia to cater exclusively to NRIs living there. Property shows and online portals are the two best ways that have been successfully employed to reach out to such customers, surmised Mr Vasudevan.

According to P Sunder, MD, HomeShikari, there are primarily two types of NRI investors, those that can't invest into property in their country of present residence and those that can. The first kind, typically are NRIs in West Asia and other countries where domicile restrictions are applicable. Due to these restrictions, they are always on the lookout for buying residential property in India because they know that they have to return back to India, some day. A significant portion of these NRIs are unskilled and semi-skilled workers and would fall into the low and middle income groups. They usually prefer to invest in land or residential property back in their home towns. Average ticket size of such investments ranges between Rs 20 to Rs 30 lakhs and such investments happen in the southern cities, more so in the towns of Kerala.

The second kind has no such domicile restrictions in their country of residence and hence, would look at investments into India from a different perspective. They could be looking at it as an investment that could provide attractive returns or they could possibly even be looking at it as an option for a future residence because more and more highly skilled manpower in presently returning back to India. These are people who are senior professionals or people who come back to India to embark on entrepreneurship after a long stint overseas.

NRIs typically look for a relatively safe investment bet with fair chances of appreciation. This is because they are not resident in India and hence, there is a constant worry about the safety of their investment. However, they don't mind investing into developing areas of a city / town because they are not totally clued in to the current state of development as much as a resident Indian. And hence, they rely on friends, relatives, news sources and marketing collaterals of builders to make their buying decisions. Safety being a prime concern, the middle and high income groups tend to go for apartments, villa projects and gated communities that provide relatively higher safety by virtue of being in a group, as against a single individual managing his property matters. An NRI investment would depend not only on the income category, but quite heavily on the underlying reason for the investment. Someone looking at it purely from an investment angle would give a lot of weightage to capital appreciation and may go for pre-launch offers.