Track2Realty: In India’s competitive real estate market, luxury housing projects have been launched aplenty over the last couple of years. So much so that a conservative market like Chennai, for instance, is likely to witness about 1,500 units of ultra-luxury homes—budgeted between Rs. 5–20 crore—within the next 12 months.
Track2Realty: Cumulative commercial real estate loans have tripled to reach INR 1.428 billion in the last six years up to November 2013, whereas individual housing loans doubled to reach INR 5.185 billion during the same period.
Track2Realty: For the quarter ended March 2014, nearly US$800 million was invested into India’s real estate sector. This translates to almost Rs.4,800 crore having been injected into the sector through the private equity route over the past few months. This couldn’t have happened at a more opportune timefor a sector faced with a liquidity crunch, high land acquisition costs, and stringent due diligence from the banking sector—which continues to perceive real estate as a high-risk domain in India.
Track2Realty: Cushman & Wakefield has expanded into Malaysia with a new office in Kuala Lumpur that is C&W’s 35th office in Asia Pacific.
Track2Realty: The emerging cities continue to dominate the rental growth in the region with Jakarta (Indonesia) witnessing the highest office rental growth (yoy) among 33 cities in Asia, followed by Manila (Philippines) at 2nd position and Shenzhen (China) at 3rd Pune (India) at 4th position while NCR (India) ranked at 10, says Asia Office Q1 2014 report of Cushman & Wakefield.
Track2Realty: Despite more than 60% of global retailers already having a presence in India, the lack of quality retail space and legislative issues have been an impediment to the spread of organized retail in the country, according to CBRE’s report, Expanding Horizons of Global Retailers in India.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The Real Estate Regulation Bill will define and clarify various concepts in the sector; this will bring in transparency and curb unfair practices. Following the trend seen in other sectors like telecom, banking, insurance etc, the Bill provides for creation of a separate Regulator and Appellate Authority. While it is expected to provide specialized regulation and enforcement, this should not become another regulatory in the ‘approval’ matrix.
Track2Realty: As consumers continued to face inflation and high interest rates in April, average household spending seemed unlikely to recover in the near term. Subdued market sentiments looked likely to continue unless consumer confidence began to rise.
Track2Realty: Driven by demand across office and retail segments, rents across commercial real estate are expected to witness a hike over the coming quarters across all segments on account improving economic environment. As a result, capital values are expected to remain broadly stable in the coming quarter.
Track2Realty: Over the past year, Mumbai continued to remain a preferred city for both domestic and foreign brands keen to open their first outlets or expand their presence across India. The city’s favorable demographics, along with the availability of investment-grade retail space, led to strong demand from retailers for shopping space.