Track2Realty: India’s economy grew 5.7% y-o-y in Q1 2014 (April–June) beating market consensus 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 and Q4 2013.
Track2Realty: The residential real estate market across leading cities of the country is unlikely to see any traction before the upcoming festive season, when demand is expected to improve. While buyers have held off purchase decisions in anticipation of lowering interest rates, developers have been waiting for the festive season before launching special schemes and discounts to boost housing sales.
Track2Realty: With the liberalisation of the FDI policy, evolving consumer preferences and entry of global retail brands in India, mall developers are busy adapting their retail developments to the changing requirements and trends. Indeed, one of the most imperative transformations is the increasing focus on planning and optimisation of retail spaces so as to extract their highest potential.
Track2Realty Exclusive: It was only a few years back that when a couple of high-end luxury projects were launched in Pune analysts were busy with the cost-benefit analysis of the splurge in the market. The rising interest of NRIs, HNIs and even global realty baron soon made everyone realise that Pune has already made its presence on the luxury landscape of India.
Track2Realty Exclusive: When Prahlad Patel went on a property hunt in the city of Vadodara, the broker had a curious look at his face. Under the impression that Patel is one among the many NRIs looking to invest in the city property with the fall in the Indian currency he thought it is his duty to narrate how the property market is just ripe to enter for sizeable return.
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: The real estate market has often been defined in terms of being either the buyers’ market or the sellers’ market. In most of the major markets across the country the bull phase of the economy led to the sellers’ market with demand outstripping the supply.
Track2Realty: With the coming of the new government already having improved sentiments in the realty market, as a next step the sector expects India’s economic fundamentals to be tackled on a priority basis before any major changes may be anticipated at an industry-level. Infrastructure projects need to be implemented with a sense of urgency, and more income tax incentives for home loans have to be introduced before we can expect to see any significant impact on the real estate sector.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Till very recently, unlike several other industries, real estate used to take a back seat in times of a sluggish market or when there was some controversy around. Any negative market sentiment or slowdown more often than not led to newspapers’ property supplements growing thinner and vacant hoardings in and around city becoming common. Prima facie it was seen to be a sales driven exercise where real estate companies’ approach has been to advertise for selling their product and not creating a brand icon. But that seems to be only half the truth in today’s context as the sector is doling out more money for advertising despite slowdown.
Track2Realty: Following the slow market conditions of the last couple of quarters, Mumbai’s office market saw a slight spurt in market sentiments in the second quarter of 2014. The city’s overall real estate market is anticipated to fare better in the third quarter over the second quarter of the year.