Better returns, a mature and transparent market are some of the factors that have made investors flock to the country’s commercial real estate. With commercial segment remaining the most favoured among all kinds of asset classes, high-net-worth investors and the uber-rich are now looking at pre-leased assets, primarily office assets, with hope.
It was not the magic wand it was hoped to be. However, over the past two years, the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) has brought more sanity – and the return of consumer power – than seemed possible in such a short time. The real estate sector is still struggling with it and the Act is very much work-in-progress in many states, but RERA nevertheless hangs like a sword of Damocles over a previously unregulated industry. Eventual compliance across the board seems inevitable.
The NRIs from the US, UK, Middle East, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Mauritius participated in the survey. They were given a mix of open-ended and close-ended questions to assess their investment choice in the Indian property market. The data was then collated by Track2Realty team to read the mood of the NRIs vis-à-vis their investment choice in the Indian property market.
There is a public perception that what has transformed this once non-descript city into thriving metro city is the gulf money since a large number of Kochi residents are working in the gulf region. However, Kochi property market is not being driven by gulf money alone; this could be only a reality in the luxury segment.
The greener pastures are mostly defined with numbers and not execution capabilities or business model. For example, the absorption of office space has been upwards of 40 million square feet per annum for the last 3 years. The overall sentiments in this segment look bullish with PE investors also putting in money. As a matter of fact, even in retail real estate the PE investors are bullish and exploring even the Tier II cities having malls with good footfalls, brand mix and strong sales. This is what is enticing the residential developers looking for both the buyers as well as the capital investments.
PEL had previously announced a strategic co-investment fund with Ivanhoé Cambridge, to provide long term equity capital to blue chip residential developers across the five major metro cities in India (Mumbai, Bengaluru, NCR, Pune and Chennai). Ivanhoé Cambridge had allocated an initial US$ 250 Mn towards this fund.
Bottom Line: Come budget and all discussions and debates around…
The Government’s decision to allow 51% FDI in multi-brand retail and 100% FDI in single-brand retail under the automatic route was a definite crowd-pleaser that attracted giants like Walmart to make forays into the country.
In India, when the going was smooth a number of leading developers tried to foray into multi-city operations. Most of them had to exit the expansion strategy sooner than later. It rather proved to be the first nail in the coffin for some of these market leaders by size.
This is probably one of the wishful thoughts of the developers that have been over projected round the year (NRI investment being the other). But a ground zero study of the property market across the key cities indicate that the online property portals offering real estate deals may have made inroads like never before, this definitely is not the end of traditional brokerage or substitute of traditional format of selling through taking clients to see it and believe it.