Track2Realty Exclusive: If Planning, Finance, Technology and Skills are the four key components of smart urban living, India lacks substantially on all the given parameters. While the world is increasingly moving ahead with real estate products adding smart quotient, in India the debate still hovers around unlocking land value & monetizing it after master plan of respective cities failed to adopt the successful global urban experiences. Track2Realty debates whether smart city ingredients should be optional reforms of real estate or made a mandatory provision.
Browsing: Investigation
Track2Realty Exclusive: In India redevelopment is a huge market, where a developer has to work with cooperative housing societies. In Mumbai the process has already started due to additional FSI granted with the new development rules. The new DCR has made it easy for developers to negotiate with the societies because now they know what areas are sanctioned and there are no free areas.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Making the strategic shift of corporate in realty is not easy and getting things right is even more complex. Even though real estate business may not be the primary operations of several conglomerates who have entered this business space, sound corporate governance is based on more than just simple compliance with ‘universal standards’.
Track2Realty Exclusive: India, although not by plan, is experiencing a boom in once relatively obscure cities. Its rising urban centers are not confined to four metro cities or Bangalore and Ahmedabad, and load on urban land and overall infrastructure demands India must take learnings from global experience of redevelopment.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The debate over promoter driven versus professional driven also brings to the table the fundamental question as to whether the entry of corporates into the business has changed the outlook of real estate in India. Have they brought about transparency and corporate governance?
Track2Realty Exclusive: On a closer look there are big and serious questions on the authenticity and prima facie it appears as if the categories have been customised to fit in the highest bidder.
Track2Realty: NCR retail real estate market remained largely stable as per the latest retail report from real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield. A few locations in both main street as well as malls saw some appreciation in rental values. Connaught Place (Inner Circle) recorded an increase of 12% while prime malls across Delhi NCR saw a positively rising curve following robust demand for the same.
Track2Realty Exclusive: There are some industry watchers who believe the entire genre of awards should not be dismissed just because there are few rotten eggs in the basket. Industry body NAREDCO thinks awards should be seen as recognition for the work done by the developer. “If a real estate company has earned an award, I think it should be respected by the industry and by the collective consciousness,” says Sunil Dahiya, Senior Vice President of NAREDCO.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The debate of promoter versus professional driven realty companies gained momentum in the year 2012 because high attrition at the top level of realty sector has been in the news throughout the year. The Managing Directors of Indiabulls Real Estate and Peninsula Land quit in the month of October. So did the real estate heads of two property funds, Indiareit and Everstone Capital. Most of them either moved to other realty companies, starting their own ventures or shifting streams to join consultancies.
Track2Realty Exclusive: While the provision of a real estate regulator snowballed into a political controversy over the jurisdiction of centre-state relations, some sector analysts believe the developers have hurt their own cause by stiff resistance to the appointment of a central regulator.