National Association of Realtors (NAR), an apex organisation of real estate brokers in the country, is working towards developing a live property valuation index, which will become the benchmark for real estate deals in the country.

NAR is in talks with with the National Housing Bank (NHB) for development of such an index. The NHB is the norm-deciding body for all housing finance institutions.

Under the mandate from NHB, the brokers body will develop Residex’ which will be an index similar to the stock exchange index that will reflect the valuations of home properties in different locations across the country.

Residex will be a quarterly indicator of property prices that will come in handy for HFIs to assess the correct value of a property they are considering to finance. The exercise will be of an experimental nature and will eventually become a benchmark for property valuations for the HFIs.

Having a realty index is a set practice in matured real estate markets, like the United States, and with globalisation of India’s realty sector the index has a relevance here as the international buyers are asking for information based on statistics and future expectations about returns.

NAR has begun an exercise to expose its members to the new valuation methodology by inviting international experts to conduct workshops across the country. An effort is on to involve local real estate brokers’ bodies like the Estate Agents Association of Pune (EAAP) to introduce best international practices to the members, he said.