The Indian real estate market has always been notorious for its lack of transparency, and the changes in recent times has been less than desirable. As India aspires to get clean money into the sector, the foreign funds too have high standards in terms of service quality and clarity.
The memories of Uphaar Tragedy on the fateful day of 13thJune, 1997, that claimed the lives of 59 and injured over 100 people, have not faded from the public memory. But it seems the developers in this part of the word are not ready to learn any lessons. For them firefighting is a mandatory provision that just needs to be installed, irrespective of its functionality.
Competing against DLF, the company won the auction and soon made plans to construct a grant 18-hole golf course surrounded by luxury apartments and villas, to be marketed as the plush “Unitech Golf and Country Club”. Flashy advertisements were immediately published and huge booking amounts were collected from aspiring buyers who looking forward to their dream homes in the project.
Full adoption of blockchain technology in Indian real estate may appear a remote possibility, however, low transparency provides an incentive for adoption of blockchain rather than an obstacle; and we see several near-term applications for the technology.
As Asian countries address the new realities of ageing crisis and increasing life expectancy, senior living is now becoming a next bet for investors. According to recently released Colliers Research report on Senior Housing Outlook 2018, countries such as Japan have grappled with an ageing population for some time, others are just beginning to realise that they will need to act quickly in order to address ageing-related issues.
Till a decade back such was the mad rush for raising money in the capital market that even the real estate companies with limited presence in select micro markets started launching projects across the country to showcase a pan-India presence. Significant increase in housing demand, organized retailing and liquidity boom from 2003 to 2008, led to huge increase in land prices and real estate values and most real estate companies had a great run.
The Jaypee buyers question the devaluation of assets by bidders.They do not believe that any new builder will be able to do justice with these projects.
MORE till date has invested capital in the real estate sector through three real estate funds and PMS/ Prop investments. Today, cumulative AUM under MORE stands at more than INR 2,100 crore spread across IREF (INR 200 crore), IREF II (INR 500 crore), IREF III (INR 1030 crore) and balance under PMS / Prop Investments.
When the market sentiments were bullish and foreign investors were testing the Indian realty market, many of the relatively not-so-polished developers started hiring these white collared professionals to negotiate with their global counterparts in a language that they understood. Problem started when this skilled workforce started colouring the vision of the promoter and hence driving the management decisions.
This may not be music to the ears of the developers who are hoping against the hope that the recent policy changes & reforms would bring the homebuyers back to the market. But the ground reality is that for a vast majority of the Indian homebuyers the measures like demonetization, GST, RERA or Benami Transaction Act are more for academic discussions than making any tangible changes for them on ground.