The top 8 cities witnessed residential launches of approximately 25,800 units in the first quarter of 2017 and registering a 16% decline from the corresponding period last year, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Urban habitation at the cost of environmental concerns have globally been debated and contested. In India the environmental concerns have often stalled big-ticket infrastructure projects and the government also vows its commitment to encourage the eco friendly and sustainable developments. However, some recent decisions have exposed the gap between the lip service of the policy makers and their commitment to the cause of eco friendly and sustainable developments.
In the fifth edition of Track2Realy Brand X Report 2016-17, Sobha makes a hattrick of brand leadership. Godrej Properties is only developer to be in top 10 across the nation while Puravankara emerges as brand performer of the year, scaling up from 9th position to fourth position this year.
The development is currently under construction and is expected to be completed in the last quarter of 2018. The project has been one of the star performers of the London residential market with over 78 units worth almost USD 170 million (GBP 130 million) sold since its launch in May 2016. Construction is being carried out by Multiplex, the construction arm of global investment major, Brookfield.
Moving forward, the moot point is whether the builders would decide to postpone their new launches keeping RERA in mind to avoid mid way issues. Within the built environment of real estate it is increasingly being questioned as to whether penalising builders for delays in the projects is justified given they rely on so many external factors. At one point government is coming up with consumer friendly RERA 2017 on the other hand government does not have any system or mechanism to give time bound permission to real estate sector developer, then how government will be successful in implementing the real estate.
A closer look at the sales methodology of the developers suggests while they exaggerate some USPs of the project, they very smartly conceal the information to make their offer look very lucrative to homebuyers.
Bhiwadi, as a matter of fact, has been the first town to conceptualise what is the most need-based housing in India. Facts speak for themselves. There are 98 million people over 55 with a steady growth of 3.5 per cent per annum. In terms of market numbers, in an analysis of 135 urban cities with a total population of 223 million and 52 million households, as many as 12.8 million families have senior citizens.
Urban planning experts believe this is a much deeper question because it is not just about the existing urban centres but also about the way urbanisation is eventually going to happen in this country. As per the UN statistics the urban population of 40 crore in India would be 60 crore in less than 20 years of time. It clearly suggests that the existing cities won’t be able to fit in this additional 20 crore population, whether indigenous or migrants.
The supply of quality housing even today is confined to eight key cities. It is not that the new cities are not coming up, but neither the investors nor even the end users want to buy a house in Tier II cities today. The dream and aspiration is always Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune kind of life.
Are the CBDs really losing out as the benchmark of economic activity in the major cities of India? Well, if only Gurgaon business destinations as against Connaught Place or Nehru Place in Delhi-NCR are any indication, or if only BKC and Navi Mumbai as against Nariman Point in Mumbai is any indication, then the CBDs have lost a significant ground by all means of reputation and economic scale.