Track2Realty: 2013 was one of much economic turbulence. High retail inflation, high interest rates and a continuous fall in the rupee value, have been slowing the overall growth and have continuously hindered the investment sentiment in the market during the entire 2013.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A great challenge in real estate branding is the local versus national market. 90 per cent of the realty brands have local presence and not pan India. Most of the projects are linked locally like Prestige with Bangalore or DLF with Gurgaon.
Track2Realty: Total net office space absorption recorded a 25% decline in across top eight cities over last year. According to the annual year end estimations by Cushman & Wakefield the total net absorption for 2013 was recorded at 23 million square feet (msf). Most cities have witnessed a decline in net absorption in the range of 20-40% during the year, except Pune where incremental new space take-up increased by 15% in 2013.
Track2Realty: There are still significant investment opportunities left in India’s real estate market. For investors looking at cost-effective projects to park their funds, this might be a right time as weak market sentiments are likely to lead to weak valuations, providing windows for investing in quality projects.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune…wait India has just discovered yet another claimant as the ‘Luxury Capital’. The City of Ahmedabad known more for its cost conscious living and affordable housing has been witness to the city’s slow but steady rise to the luxury living with developers’ focus shifting on luxury projects, buyers’ looking up to scale their living and luxury brands flocking to the city.
Track2Realty: India’s hospitality real estate space has probably come of age; and has reached a critical threshold in its learning as well as business development curves. Although the ongoing economic slowdown and uncertainty have caused hotel rates to decrease marginally in the last couple of years, India now stands at the cusp of a hotel building and rebranding boom, which should help keep rates competitive in 2013.
Track2Realty: Emerging markets are offering interesting investment opportunities in terms of shopping center development, according to the latest Asia Pacific Retail Trends and Retail Hotspots reports released by CBRE. The Asia Pacific market in particular continued to see a steady flow of new retailer openings in 2013, amid steady economic growth and generally positive consumer sentiment.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Brand managers of the companies who have been into strategising at the bottom of the pyramid wish it is high time credible bodies initiate measures on this front in the public domain. On the other hand, private equity funds in their due diligence reports (privately) do accord importance to this aspect.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Media perception is not much different than public perception in developing brand. It depends on how media plays down. 50 per cent of the media is honest in promoting actual brand worthiness but few media also carries planted articles or on the contrary, prevents negative articles in exchange of media barter deals.
Track2Realty: Investments in real estate total value of announced private equity transactions in the real estate for the first three quarters of 2013 were recorded at INR 4,716 crores (USD 755million), witnessing an increase of 26% compared to the first three quarters of 2012 (INR 3,750 crores / USD 704 million).