While other developers aspiring to go global are tying up with international brands, PNC Menon, founder and Chairman Emeritus of Sobha Group believes in organic growth of the brand. In an exclusive interview with Ravi Sinha at his Dubai office, he explains how Sobha has the inherent resilience to succeed anywhere in the global market. Focus on quality & don’t break the law is his mantra of global brand leadership.
Freedom is a luxury and it means different things to different set of people. The stakeholders within the built environment of the Indian real estate too have their own set of definition when it comes to what defines their freedom. While for a home buyer, freedom is to have a rent-free house of one’s own at an affordable price, for the developers the quest has been freedom from multiple bottlenecks – single window clearance, industry status, easy funding and, most importantly, FSI free developments. Track2Realty investigates whether ‘Freedom From FSI’ would be boon or bane.
India’s urban housing today could at best be described as a soda bottle syndrome where the constant rural push to the select few urban centers could explode at any given point of time. It is not that the policy makers are unaware with the growing population and its dependence over the metro cities. As a matter of fact, when the country’s first planned city, Chandigarh, came into existence as a horizontal city that could cater as the capital of both the Punjab and Haryana State, it seemed to be independent India’s first tryst with organized urban planning in general and its housing solution in particular.
Corporate governance is a core principle that cuts through the entire value chain of Puravankara, claims Abhishek Kapoor, CEO of Bengaluru-based company. In an exclusive interview with Track2Realty, he shares how transparency, integrity and respect are central to the company’s internal and external stakeholder relationships. Puravanakara has also established a strong ESG framework that guides the decisions as a business and a responsible corporate citizen. Excerpts of the interview:
Home buying is more often than not linked to the financial health of the home buyers. However, mental health is as important as the financial health and the Indian housing market seems to rob the buyers the much needed peace and happiness that comes with an asset class like the home. The stress and anxiety is not limited to finding the right home, rather the real mental stress begins once one has bought the dream house. A Track2Realty pan-India survey.
Just when the real estate industry bodies had firmed up their public posturing to halt construction with allegation of cartelisation by the cement & steel producers, there was uneasiness at the developers’ end. Many of them had their back of the envelope calculation as to whether the construction strike would actually help or hurt the business. Track2Realty tries to get into the depth of the issue.
In an interesting year when Godrej Properties lost its sheen, Sobha Limited yet again bounced back as the National Brand Leader after a gap of 2 years. The 10th edition of Track2Realty BrandXReport 2021-22 finds that the market perception vis-à-vis the brands could change dramatically, and it takes all the more care to retain the Brand Leadership than reaching at the top.
The home buyers have for long alleged that the RERA has failed to provide them substantial relief in the wake of project delay or defaults. Now the Allahabad High Court has also taken cognizance of the issue and has not only questioned reasons of non-execution but also asked for the roadmap as to how RERA Recovery Certificates would be executed.
The real estate market of Uttar Pradesh in general and Noida-Greater Noida in particular is hotbed of consumer grievances, ranging from delay to default and unmet promises to builder’s high handedness. As per the industry estimate nearly 40% home buyers’ grievances in India are reported to be from this market alone. It is hence no surprise that even when the Real Estate Regulatory Authority proposes to clean the market, the builders devise their own ways & means to dispose it.
The industry data of faster recovery and record home sales conceal more than it intends to reveal. The rosy outlook fails to address the fact that this is a K-shaped recovery where a handful of large developers with sound financials have grown at the cost of the large universe of the developers. More importantly, the sales registration data doesn’t differentiate between primary market sale and distress sale in the secondary market.