The months before the festive season are generally lull for the property market. Indians are mentally wired to buy the high valuables on the auspicious dates during the festivals. However, this seems to be changing in the property market this time around, as economic rationale indicates preference over religious beliefs. The vast majority of the home buyers anticipate price appreciation during the festive season.
Should businesses continue to operate out of old jaded buildings at the heart of the city? Is it more convenient for the commercial activities to move to the upscale swanky offices on the periphery locations where the cost of doing business per square feet is much lesser? Is ‘Walk to Work’ only a city center reality across the urban pockets? These are the subjects of serious discussions across the built environment of commercial real estate world over, finds Track2Realty.
This is not a one-off stray incident of cheating in the housing market in this part of the world. Srikanth had a similar experience with the Gurugram-based developer when he wished to sell out his much-delayed under-construction property due to medical emergency in the family. The developer refused to transfer the property in the name of the new buyer. He instead offered him to buy back the said property at three years old price when Srikanth had booked the apartment. The choice for this harassed home buyer was to either forget about the appreciation or else get into a costly and lengthy litigation.
To say that women workforce in the Indian real estate has broken the proverbial glass ceiling would be stating the obvious. Far from being perceived as a decorative value at the reception only, the women have now stormed into critical areas, from sales to consumer grievances and corporate communication to legal. Many of them have even been into the decision making and the work culture in many of the Grade A real estate companies appear to be gender neutral.
The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has set aside the order of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that had directed to initiate insolvency proceedings against BPTP Ltd. The realty firm has now settled disputes with the operational creditor.
The Supreme Court had directed a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into alleged money laundering by the developers, that provided relief to over 42,000 home buyers of the Amrapali Group with the verdict.
While other developers aspiring to go global are tying up with international brands, PNC Menon, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Sobha Group believes in organic growth of the brand. In an exclusive interview with Ravi Sinha at his Dubai office, he explains how Sobha has the inherent resilience to succeed anywhere in the global market. Focus on quality & don’t break the law is his mantra of global brand leadership.
India’s urban housing today could at best be described as a soda bottle syndrome where the constant rural push to the select few urban centers could explode at any given point of time. It is not that the policy makers are unaware with the growing population and its dependence over the metro cities. As a matter of fact, when the country’s first planned city, Chandigarh, came into existence as a horizontal city that could cater as the capital of both the Punjab and Haryana State, it seemed to be independent India’s first tryst with organized urban planning in general and its housing solution in particular.
What is icing on the cake for the developers in these smaller towns now is the fact that they are getting the labour force at a much lower cost. Explaining this trend, Sandeep Agrawal, a property broker in Patna says that the labours were getting their daily wages in the Delhi NCR region in the range of INR 350-500, depending upon the project. But now they are more than willing to work at INR 250 in places like Patna, Kanpur, Kochi etc where they are stationed in proximity to their home towns and the cost of living is much lesser, compared to the metro cities.
A closer look at the way the sector operates indicates that the ground realities are different than what is being anticipated post this historic judgment. The Supreme Court order has hence raised more questions than settled the answers that could goad the sector to best practices in the business. The court order touches upon some of the grey areas like “long & expensive legal battle” that the buyers have to go through. It nevertheless doesn’t offer any solution for the same. The fact remains that the long & expensive legal battle is the primary cause of home buyers’ suffering in silence at the hands of the builders.