Abstract
The research approach relied on both secondary data sources and
empirical study. The secondary data sources were the websites of the
central and state governments. Besides, the review of the Act applicable
to homebuyers, analysis of judicial pronouncements and the Act’s
impact on FDI policy add quality input to the method. Moreover, invoking
the Right to Information Act, 2005, solicited information usually not
available in the public domain from government sources to supplement the
research database.
The study’s empirical aspect assessed the Act’s impact on
homebuyers, mainly and society at large through a field study of
540 homebuyers eight metro cities such as Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar,
Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Indore, Kolkata, and Mumbai. The sample covered
the prior RERDA, 2016 enactment period and had at least two years of
involvement in owning a property in a real estate project and a minimum
of another two years post-legislation as of the interview date. Since
the Act primarily benefits urban “middle-income settlers” dreaming of
a sweet home in a lifetime, homebuyers buying up to three
residential units included in the sample and investors who wanted purely
for resell or rental purposes were out of consideration.
The information was collected through discussion using a pre-tested
semi-structured questionnaire about flat possession, apartment life and
society management, and the developers’ approach towards
homebuyers between January and May 2021. The questionnaire was
reasonably trustworthy at a 1% significance level, with acceptable
internal consistency and overall internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha
= 0.652). Since the sample collection was from eight capital cities, the
chi-square test was used to validate the regional variation on the Act’s
impact on homebuyers in the country. Root-cause analysis-Fishbone
diagrammatic presentation explains the Act’s impact on homebuyers
and the society.