India's once red-hot property market now struggling

New Delhi

AMIT Khulve, a 34-year-old resident of the north Indian city of Noida, is still paying off the mortgage on an apartment he's never lived in. The sales executive says he borrowed about 500,000 rupees (S$10,280) in 2012 and pulled another one million rupees from his savings to reserve a flat in a building planned by the property developer Unitech.

Six years on, the project hasn't been built, and he's among hundreds fighting to recover their investments. Unitech's founders have been jailed on charges of cheating, which they deny.

India's Supreme Court in the coming months will review ways to protect the company's homebuyers and consider the founders' request for bail.

Across the metropolitan area that surrounds New Delhi, several real estate developers including Unitech, Jaypee Infratech and Amrapali Group have been dragged to court by irate homeowners who shelled out payments for apartments that have yet to be completed. Many of these firms took money from a stream of buyers. As sales slumped and the once red-hot market cooled, their businesses unravelled - leaving them …