Track2Realty: The IT/ITeS sector continues to be a dominant growth driver for Bangalore, and some areas stand out from the rest as far as the impact of this sector is concerned. Whitefield in the eastern part of Bangalore is one such area. Whitefield was an early settlement in Bangalore and remained a quaint little suburb till the 2000s, when Bangalore’s IT boom reshaped Whitefield into a major suburb.
Track2Realty: The Grade A commercial office market in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) attracted an increase in demand for office space, with rental values rising across select established micro-markets during the quarter ended June 2014.
Track2Realty Exclusive: If ever you have not missed a flight out of Mumbai or got delayed to an appointment of lifetime in Mumbai due to traffic bottlenecks, you would probably not understand why India’s commercial capital has been waiting so eagerly for the metro train to roll out. But wait! There is more to just ease of traffic with the metro train in Mumbai becoming a reality.
Track2Realty Exclusive: It was in the July last year that Rohit Arora, an NRI returned from New Jersey to settle in Mumbai and set up his consultancy business over here. Looking for an office space, he was so carried by the reports of a price correction that he preferred to defer the office acquisition, either on rent or purchase.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The east coast of Delhi-NCR has been on a roll and bucking all the trends of slowdown areas in and around, most importantly Ghaziabad, NH 24 stretch and Noida have done better than the national average in the last couple of years. To say that the property market in this part of the world has been more realistic having registered more property transactions would be stating the obvious.
Track2Realty: Investment-grade office space demand slowed down in the first quarter of 2014, with around 6.3 million sq. ft. of Grade A office space getting absorbed across the leading cities of the country. Transaction activity was dominated by the National Capital Region (NCR), Bangalore and Chennai.
Track2Realty: The total fresh mall supply by the end of 2014 is projected to be approximately 14 million square feet (msf) approx. in the top eight cities of India, of which 13.6 msf is still under construction, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield. This is nearly 200% more than the supply received in 2013 which was recorded at almost 4.6 msf. Of the total expected mall supply for the year of 2014 approximately 60% or 8.2 msf of fresh mall supply is expected to be received by National Capital Region (NCR) followed by Bengaluru at 2.86 msf.
Track2Realty: India continued to feature on the list of the world’s most expensive office markets, with New Delhi (Connaught Place – CBD) ranking at the 7th position, according to CBRE Global Research and Consulting’s semi-annual Prime Office Occupancy Costs survey. Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) bagged the 15th position, while Nariman Point stood at the 32nd position. The latest CBRE survey provides data on office rents and occupancy costs as of September 2013.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The capital city is witnessing a face lift with various infrastructural initiatives, increasing prominence of satellite towns and emergence of new business districts. The Master Plan 2021 aims at making Delhi “a global metropolis and a world class city” for which necessary initiatives are being undertaken by both the Government and the private sector.
Not all experts and analysts are bullish in a country which has just two of world’s 276 skyscrapers. Prof PSN Rao, Professor of School of Planning and Architecture has a different take when he says high rise buildings look good in the urban city scape. However, in terms of the power they consume, the high initial costs of construction and high periodic costs of maintenance, perhaps they are not viable for residential structures.