Real Estate appreciation is part of the general inflation. The reason real estate is so high in places like Bangalore is because there is a lot of cash floating around and people are itching to spend and invest. So they buy flats, houses in the hope of appreciation. This has worked out for the last decade, so more people jump on the bandwagon. This is normal. The question is why do people have so much money? Everyone I talk to in India say "arre sab ke paas paisa hai" ("everyone has a lot of money")ChandraV wrote:
Real estate has appreciated much much more than inflation. If you purchased real estate in 2005, you would exit with a massive profit today, even after all the inflation etc.
I disagree about real estate crash though. Any clampdown on black money will be very gradual. The number of people who want new homes is immense. The demand for housing is unending. Villas for 2,3,5 crores are not the norm. A flat for between 50 lakh to 1 crore is the median. As long as the economy keeps growing, there will be no shortage of demand for houses. Real estate may eventually not be as profitable as it is today, the rate of return may approach bank FD interest rates, but I don't foresee a crash.

Everything is pointing to a big crash in India in housing. We had a real estate crash in the US in 2007 and I remember finance gurus gloating that US "never" will have a real estate downturn. Housing prices will "never" go down because it never has. The last one was around 30 years ago and no one remembers. The situation now is that demand has gone down for buying houses but prices don't go down. Builders cannot sell and have to keep vacant houses and they have to pay loans too. It's a cluster waiting to happen.