Margin in real estate and cement sectors likely to come down 6-7%: Mukesh Agarwal, CRISIL Research

In a chat with ET Now, Mukesh Agarwal, Senior Director, CRISIL Research, shares his stock ideas.

What is the call on real estate and cement stocks?

Real estate is an interest rate sensitive sector and recently the prices have gone up. Along with that, interest rates have gone up. Because of that, the affordability of the buyers has come down. We expect overall the revenues for the real estate companies to more or less remain flat as compared with what it was last year but we see the margins on an aggregate level for the real estate sector as a whole to come down by around 6% this year.

In the cement sector, last year the growth was slightly muted around 6-7%. This year, we expect the overall growth rate in the cement sector to be around 9-10% but the margins will take a beating. We expect the prices to go up by 3-4%, mostly in the second half but overall, the increase in coal prices and the transportation cost. We expect the margins of the cement players to come down by around 6-7% in this year.