The Mumbai realty market is awaiting a policy change by the Maharashtra Government that could appreciate the prices in South Mumbai, while soften up the market in the suburbs. Real estate prices in South Mumbai range between Rs 20,000 and Rs 1 lakh per sq ft, whereas the rates in the suburbs range between Rs 6,000 and Rs 40,000 per sq ft.
In the wake of Adarsh society controversy the Mumbai government has suddenly woken up to the reality that they don’t have authentic records of land ownership and maps of many plots in one of the costliest addresses in India, South Mumbai. The state’s urban development department has written to the city collector, telling him to prepare records of ownership of land in Backbay and Nariman Point areas in south Mumbai.
Capital market regulator the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has apprehensions over the feasibility of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in India. The regulator had issued draft guidelines for REITs a couple of years ago, but may drop its plan to introduce it now.
India Property Tax Rates have been rationalized as whole taxation system has undergone a change. These changes are basically to evolve the system and raise it to international standards.
In India the early 1990s experienced the shopping malls expanding their footprint with well designed, built on international formats of retailing and integrated with entertainment and restaurants to provide a complete family experience. Shopping centers till then were designed and built to house several shops in a single facility.
With the reasonable expectation of a roof over the head not very long ago, the real estate boom in the last decade has scaled up the liberty of choice for the average home buyers. While the aspirations of even the middle and lower middle income with moderate budgets have gone up, there are very many residential projects launched in recent times that seem to fill the gap with the promise of faster deliveries, hi-tech amenities, luxurious lifestyle, lush green surroundings within the affordable range of 20-40 lakhs.
Kolkata is fundamentally a Tier II city, and its real estate market is not as volatile as those of the primary cities. Because of this, Kolkata’s residential property sector was not as seriously impacted by the nationwide slump in the real estate market as cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune or Hyderabad.
Faced with the prospect of new transactions, corporate real estate (CRE) managers have been analyzing the options of leasing versus buying a real estate space. In the recent slowdown, distinct trends have emerged among industry verticals while strategically choosing either to lease or buy real estate space. While the IT/ITES sector has been the front runner in terms of lease transactions recorded during 2H08-1H10, accounting for 41% of the total lease transactions, BFSI and Manufacturing / Industrial sectors have been dominant purchasers of office space during the same period.
India has 105 operational (21,214 hectares) and another 631 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under various stages of approval (see DTZ report on ‘SEZs in India’ June 2010). These zones are the only tax havens in India after the likely expiry of STPI/EOU scheme in March 2011 and have seen healthy interest from occupiers as well as developers. The new Direct Taxes Code (DTC 2010) bill, proposes to alter the tax framework of SEZs.
Real estate markets are inherently vulnerable to prolonged periods where prices deviate from their fundamental value. The features that contribute to this deviation are imperfect information, suboptimal financial markets and supply rigidities. Imperfect information causes buyers to either overestimate or underestimate the fundamental value of real estate assets.