Track2Realty: Technically speaking, retirement home projects are developed keeping in mind certain age groups, and should ideally be designed with special facilities to make life more comfortable for senior citizens. However, the on-ground interpretation in India has for the longest time been that any project and location that fits a certain budget and requirements is potentially a suitable ‘retirement home’.
Track2Realty: The Indian monsoon months are synonymous with low activity in real estate, but this year witnessed considerable amount of activity in the office sector. Compared with last year’s monsoon months of July, August and September (3Q CY 2013), this period in 2014 showed 58% growth in office space demand.
Track2Realty: Net office uptake in the first three quarters (Jan – Sept) of 2014 has seen a significant rise of 36% as compared to same time last year. Total net absorption of office space has been recorded at approximately 24 million square feet (msf) between January – September in 2014 as against the 17.7 msf in same time in 2013, says Cushman & Wakefield in a report.
Track2Realty: Despite overall retailer demand remaining generally subdued for retail real estate space in the Asia Pacific region during the July–September period of the year (Q3 2014)—major global mass market fashion brands continued with steady space transactions in India and emerging markets of Southeast Asia.
Track2Realty: The daily papers are replete with complaints by buyers who had been led astray or otherwise victimized by fly-by-night developers who specialize in launching small one-off projects and then wash their hands off the project. In a market environment where the exists a high degree of customer awareness with regards to most products, how can this continue to happen?
Track2Realty Exclusive: The critics of Mumbai property market for long blamed it for getting saturated with no new avenue of growth. The peninsular city no doubt has a limitation as far as expanding its boundaries are concerned, yet Mumbai is increasingly challenging its geographical limitations. The expansion of the city, not just vertically but horizontally of late, is enough to silence the critics.
Track2Realty: Consequent to corporate real estate transaction closures during the first nine months of the year across the leading seven cities in the country, CBRE notices the potential generation of office employment opportunities of over 2,70,000.
Track2Realty: Rapid urbanization has thrown up many complicated challenges for home owners as well as city planners. While most of the debate tends to revolve around how to improve living conditions in the core urban areas, real estate developers in many cities like Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore are now coming up with an entirely new solution – the creation of entirely new satellite mega-cities.
Track2Realty: With BJP controlling the Centre and the two biggest real estate markets in India – Mumbai and Gurgaon – the government has to focus on 3 I’s – Infrastructure, Interest reduction and Income generation. With the BJP’s remarkable show in Maharashtra, the state will give a new lease of life to its infrastructure projects across all sectors.
Track2Realty: The month of October saw the government easing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) norms to boost India’s construction sector. The announcement is expected to widen the sector’s investor-base by allowing FDI in smaller projects of 20,000 sq. m. instead of 50,000 sq. m. from firms with capitalization of US$5 million instead of US$10 million.