ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a macroeconomic summary of seven South Asian nations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It deals with a broad macroeconomic comparison and gradually progress towards data which is more pertinent from a real estate standpoint. The data analyzed is collected from several public sources, such as the World Bank; private websites, such as Numebo; and property-listing websites as well as proprietary databases, such as Bloomberg and Preqin. One of the impediments in the economy and particularly in consumption is the higher inflation rates in the region. The volumes of production in major industries are different across countries in the region. India is also the largest economy in terms of household consumption due to its massive population and increased purchasing power over the past few decades, followed by Pakistan and Bangladesh. The home-price-to-income ratio indicates affordability of housing in an economy. Suppliers of real estate require big-ticket investment.
