Track2Realty: Describing Union Finance Minister’s Arun Jaitley’s maiden budget as “half glass full” and half filled with hopes, realtors’ apex body CREDAI Chairman Lalit Kumar Jain said it met with some expectations and left some out.
Track2Realty: The Union Budget 2014-15 was presented in the parliament under economic circumstances that required tax revenues to keep pace with targets. Considering the state of government finances and the current situation – below-normal monsoons, Middle East tension leading oil price volatility, the weakness of the India rupee etc., there was not much room for populism.
Track2Realty Exclusive: All major cities are crowded beyond their limits and most are replete with problems like traffic, pollution, housing problems, lack of space, not to mention the ever-rising cost of living. Industry experts believe that integrated townships are the best solution proposed to counter the problem of crowded cities.
Track2Realty: Asian economies compete for greater global influence in terms of business, politics and sociocultural activity. Within economies, cities are the real growth engines. According to The Economic Intelligence Unit’s Hot Spots 2025 (2013) and AT Kearney’s 2014 Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook (2014), leading Indian cities have done well in terms of growing business activity and enhancing human capital.
Track2Realty: The reduced apartment sizes in new launches in 2014 have contributed to making prices more affordable. In the over 50,000 mid segment units (1 and 2 BHKs) of newly launched houses across top eight cities in Quarter 1 of 2014, most cities have seen a reduction in sizes of approximately 100 sf. This has led to an average drop of 6 percent in cost of the apartments within these cities, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Reeling under compelling economic circumstances that call for financial prudence and tough measures, the first Union Budget of the NDA Government is still reason enough for the real estate sector to exude optimism. It seems the euphoria of a stable government at the Centre is running so deep that despite of the government taking certain tough economic measures before the budget itself and the Reserve Bank of India also not cutting the repo rate down in its recent monetary policy review, the sector is expecting rosy days ahead with the budget being the first catalytic point.
Track2Realty: Maharashtra Government will soon come out with cluster development policy. This was announced on Friday, June 27, by Sachin Ahir, Minister of State for Housing, Slum Improvement, Housing Repairs and Reconstruction, Urban Land Ceiling, Industries, Mines, Transport, Environment and Parliamentary Affairs. He was speaking at the real estate conclave organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The sentiments in the property market are subdued across the country and the transactions have nosedived in most of the major markets. However, Gujarat real estate seems to be picking up to buck the trend otherwise and the sentiments are changing for the better. This is reflective in the transactions that are happening across the state.
Track2Realty: Cumulative commercial real estate loans have tripled to reach INR 1.428 billion in the last six years up to November 2013, whereas individual housing loans doubled to reach INR 5.185 billion during the same period.
Track2Realty: Expectations of an economic turnaround were belied with GDP growth slowing down to about 4.7% for FY 2013–14, marking it as the second straight year with below-5% growth.