An overcautious year ahead for real estate sector-II
The office market is likely to observe steady demand, especially in prime locations in leading cities like NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
The office market is likely to observe steady demand, especially in prime locations in leading cities like NCR, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Replicating global trends, the Indian economy is looking towards an impending slowdown in growth due to decline in consumption expenditure, repeated hikes in interest rates and consistently high inflation.
Equinox Realty,an arm of oli-to-steel conglomerate Essar Group,plans to sell a minority stake in its biggest commercial asset in Mumbai to raise between 7.5 billion rupees and 10 billion rupees, sources close to the development said.
Godrej Properties Limited, the real estate arm of the Godrej Group, is planning to raise Rs 500-600 crore through the institutional placement programme (IPP). The move is aimed at reducing its outstanding debt, which is around Rs 2,000 crore.
India is the ninth largest construction market in the world according to a Global Construction 2020 report by Oxford Economics. Growing at an estimated cumulative annual growth rate of 8.9%, it is expected to become the third largest market by 2020 and is globally acknowledged as an extremely lucrative business opportunity.
In the country’s commercial capital, Mumbai, over a dozen large developers and double their number of smaller ones are selling office properties as well, according to Ashok Kumar, Principal and Managing Director of Cresa Partners, a corporate realty services firm.
In 2011 six big ticket real estate IPOs was expected to raise over $2.9 billion or Rs.13,000 crore. Emaar MGF, which could not raise money in the capital market in consecutive attempts even when market conditions were conducive.
Fitch Ratings’ outlook for 2012 for the Indian real estate sector is negative due to weak overall demand and higher construction costs, which are likely to continue to squeeze margins.
Rising cost and falling transactions are taking their toll on the property market in both the Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.
With the market set to bottom by out by the second quarter of 2012, we will see the beginning of a recovery in the city’s residential real estate fortunes by the second half of the year.