Track2Realty: When the Reserve Bank of India made the announcement of allowing External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) in affordable housing, including slum redevelopment, there was an optimism and euphoria that cheaper money coming into the much-needed segment of real estate would redefine the property market in general and in the process help the country meet the housing shortage.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Real estate has not just been innovative but also aggressive in raising money. They have raised money against sales with a guarantee that if the price falls, they will buy it back. It has been a protection on the bank’s side that if the prices fall, of course there is a margin of about 20% and if the prices fall more than that, they will buy back. 20% has been the cut off because about 10% is the expense in buyback, brokerages, paperwork etc.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Puniet Singh, CEO, Sherwoods Independent Property Consultants says the latest trend of moving to the outskirts in the vicinity of IT companies benefits individual and professionals to have their comfort nearby with office and home in the same areas. This will expand the horizon of modern living as well. Further the distance from the city allows its residents to stay away from traffic, pollution and congestion.
Track2Realty: A builder nexus will render 200 families homeless or with uninhabitable apartments. The B.M.C. has issued notices to 140 residents to demolish all structures above the fifth floor of the seven buildings in the Campa Cola Compound, Worli.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Realtors rue that in spite of all the scrutiny, even today realty does not have the right formula. The issue is not to go public or whether the people who have already gone public are right or wrong. The issue now is if while going public, there is a solution where the actual value is derived on the basis of how other industries value themselves? Only then it makes financial sense to go public as the sector has seen successful IPOs also.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Neeraj Bansal, Partner-Real Estate & Construction at KPMG India says although more and more developers are rooting for integrated township projects, the project execution has been disappointing owing to multiple factors. The primary among them is delays in obtaining approvals from various departments.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The case of Japan is one of the most inspiring and creative as conviction of betterment leads the policy and practical solution formulations. Gate Tower Building is a 16-story office building in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Japan. And what makes it notable is the highway that passes through the 5th-7th floors of this building. The highway is part of the Hanshin Expressway, a network (239.3 km) of expressways surrounding Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, Japan. The Gate Tower Building is Japan’s first building to have a highway pass through it. And it had been nicknamed “beehive” referring to its appearance as a “bustling place”.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Kruti Jain, Director, Kumar Urban Development, believes any funding available in real estate is gap funding. It is not about only the gap which is there in funding for real estate because what happens for other industries is that they have this reserve capital which is not their land or raw material, but is the actual capital they put in to manufacture xyz product and then they replenish the funds with whatever returns are accrued.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The realty market has been pretty exposed to the greedy investors and vulture funding, not venture funding. In desperation the developers often lost track of what kind of funding was required and met with the disaster. Amidst the cyclic very high and very low there has been off balance debt-equity ratio as well. Of late, some developers tried within the box and some outside it. The needs and solutions are different for listed and unlisted companies. Still the sector is in search of right funding mechanism and as Track2Realty finds, are guinea pigs in the funding market.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Conceptually across the world integrated townships have gone beyond a well-planned housing complex that meets daily needs of its residents to a functioning city that aims at self reliance. The townships being built today have a balanced configuration of residential and commercial spaces intermingled with well-developed infrastructure and recreational amenities besides the green and open spaces.