Track2Realty: The month of October saw the government easing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms to boost India’s construction sector. The announcement is expected to widen the sector’s investor-base by allowing FDI in smaller projects of 20,000 sq. m. instead of 50,000 sq. m. from firms with capitalization of US$5 million instead of US$10 million.
Track2Realty: Cushman & Wakefield in their latest research on the residential markets of India have reported a drop in total residential units launched in 3Q 2014 (July – Sept.) of approximately 21% as compared to same time last year.
Track2Realty: The key southern markets of Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad together clocked in about half of the total corporate real estate space take-up among India’s leading office markets during the first nine months of the year.
Track2Realty: Positive market sentiments and a gradual global as well as domestic macro-economic recovery may finally be signaling the beginning of a revival in India’s corporate real estate segment. Various corporate firms, who had put their office space consolidation and expansion plans on hold over the previous couple of fiscals, finally began their transaction processes; and many concluded the same during the penultimate quarter of 2014.
Track2Realty: It is going to be quite a hard sell for the real estate developers this festive season as a huge increase of 30% quarter–on–quarter in 2014-15 in new launches in the residential segment met with inventory further going up by 6.7% in the same period, according to an ASSOCHAM recent paper.
Track2Realty: CBRE’s India Office Market View for Q3 2014 reports on the status of Grade A office space in the country’s leading cities. The third quarter observed strong demand for prime office space with around 8 million sq. ft. of office space getting absorbed.
Track2Realty Exclusive: At a time when the buzz word across the country has been the inevitable reality of urbanisation and the need to create smart cities the urban planners are wondering which are the Indian cities that can claim to be close to the desired smart index. More importantly, which are the cities that have managed urban development along with the pace of business and economy to emerge as the truly developed cities with self sustaining physical and social infrastructure that could be a magnet for big ticket investment?
Track2Realty: The logistics and warehousing market in India attracted steady transaction activity, with large sized transactions of around 100,000–250,000 sq. ft. reported during the first half of 2014. The Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), Chennai and Mumbai accounted for the bulk of leasing activity during H1 2014. The automotive, FMCG, commerce, and third party logistics sectors were the principle drivers of demand for warehousing space in the country during the first half of the year, according to the CBRE report, India Logistics MarketView – H1 2014.
Track2Realty: India’s economy grew 5.7% y-o-y in Q1 2014–15 (April–June) belying market forecasts of 5.3%, and showing signs of recovery following annual growth numbers of between 4.4% and 5.2% in each quarter between Q1 2012–13 and Q4 2013–14.
Track2Realty: CommonFloor.com has received USD 30 million in a new round of funding from their existing investor, Tiger Global. The current round of funding comes within months after it raised Rs 64 crores in last round from Tiger Global and Accel India.