Taking action on India’s environmental crisis is no longer an option – it is a necessity. Sustainable real estate presents India with an unique and enormous opportunity to make concrete progress in the country’s effort to improve its environment.
Naturally, the IT industry is not comfortable with seeing the STPI scheme go. It was slated for expiry in 2009, but the industry managed to wangle two extensions for it. The Government has provided an alternative in the form of Special Economic Zones.
Rising transparency levels, progressive regulations, and a robust commercial real estate market in the country have made the segment a favorite among institutional investors, it says. Investors have allocated nearly USD 17 bn in the form of direct investments as well as through entity level investments from 2006 to 2019 in the office space.
Kolhapur district is no longer considered as just rural and agrarian. Today, the demand for good quality residences has increased with improvements in jobs and other economic activities. This has also led to the increasing demand for commercial real estate. Some of the companies are increasingly evaluating the city for business establishments, as the cost of doing business per square feet in Kolhapur is much cheaper than Mumbai or Pune.
Track2Realty Exclusive: 2014 was an eventful year for the commercial real estate market in India. The economic outlook in the first half of the year was uninspiring. Coupled with political uncertainty this resulted in investors and occupiers stalled making any real estate decisions. Business confidence was at its lowest. The sentiment changed dramatically in the second half post the national elections as it became clear that there would a ‘new’ stable government.
Track2Realty: The commercial real estate office segment in India is primarily a leasing market. Although Indian firms have traditionally preferred to purchase office properties for their own businesses, multi-national entities in the country typically prefer to lease office space.
Track2Realty-JLLI: Recently, the annual GDP number (6.5% GDP growth during FY April 2011-March 2012) released by the Reserve Bank of India resulted in a negative sentiment throughout the real estate industry. Consistent with this, in 1H12, the demand for commercial real estate moderated on the back of office occupiers that remained cautious about their expansion plans.
Till the ‘90s and even early years of the last decade, commercial real estate was being built as just another asset class to be leased out to entrepreneurs who would start or expand business as and when required. Most office buildings were largely built in the central business districts of various cities, functioning primarily as the central node where most of the commercial activity of the city took place.
Since the hospitality sector was previously considered a part of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) and was subject to the same risk exposure, the cost of such debt was high. In September 2009, new guidelines on CRE released by the Reserve Bank of India, asserted that the hospitality sector would no longer be treated as a part of CRE and risk exposure would be based on the profile of the borrower and the nature of the project.
An analysis of the recent revival of commercial real estate market in Mumbai shows that the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector has been primarily responsible for the huge uptake of office space.