Jones Lang LaSalle India has appointed Anurag Mathur as CEO – Project & Development Services and Head – Emerging Businesses. He was formerly Managing Director at Cushman & Wakefield, where he led pan-India operations. Anurag Mathur brings with him eighteen years of hands-on experience in diverse real estate services.
Anticipating a significant rate cut by the RBI, disappointed real estate community has ring alarm bells and forecast more slump due to the high interest rate regime. Pointing out that the capital and labour intensive sector plays a key role in employment generation and accelerating growth, industry body CREDAI says the government has also been losers of revenue due to neglect of the sector and risks attributed to real estate and the RBI advisories against lending to real estate have only harmed the sector and made housing costlier for consumers, apart from affecting the economy.
Spiraling property prices and slump in home sales have forced the Union Housing Ministry to think out-of-the-box solutions. After the decision to set up a high-level committee to recommend policy interventions to facilitate creation of rental housing stocks, the ministry has now sought views from private developers and builders to evolve a strategy for reducing the time taken in approval of real estate projects that can help bring down the cost of houses.
Sahara Infrastructure and Housing, of late being in the news for market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) rap for mopping up Rs 17,400 crore through debentures and delayed project completion has now announced another 68 projects within FY 2012 – 13 across India. A statement issued by Sahara claims to introduce 10 lifestyle township projects, of which 9 will be self sufficient integrated townships under the brand name of ‘Sahara City Homes’ and 1 under the brand name of ‘Sahara Grace’.
Over the last year, there has been an unequivocal crystallization of Indian cities that continue to attract serious investment into real estate. This is directly correlated to the economic dynamics now working in the country. If India is to achieve even a conservative GDP growth of 6% per year, it emerges that only three cities – Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore – have the potential to deliver. The reason for this is that close to 2/3rd of the overall development of office space in the country is now taking place in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
“Supertech invites you to invest in a pre-launch project at an attractive discount,” this SMS has been sent at least 5 times within a week. The bulk SMS, however, fails to acknowledge that many of these unsolicited messages are being delivered to the wrong recipients, including media, in front of whom most of the developers deny to pre-launch the projects any more. As a matter of fact, ever since Supreme Court came down heavily on the pre-launch offer of the developers, various states including Haryana have banned such offers.
The new concept of integrated townships is now more about a single developer taking over a large tract of land. There are benefits too. “The infrastructure is under the developers’ control,” explains Anuj Puri, Chairman and Country Head, JLLI, adding that the developer can plan and use the FSI better, and long-term maintenance is a possibility.
The anti-monopoly regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) has dismissed the plea of two individuals against the realty company Unitech alleging that Unitech failed to fulfill its obligation by not handing over the possession on time and therefore violated section 4 of the Competition Act (2002) by abusing its dominant position.
What goes into the strategic planning of an integrated township to make it a case study in flagship project? One such integrated township in Mumbai is Kohinoor City at Kurla Vidyavihar. Atul Modak, Head of Kohinoor City says, “What we considered was the need to provide plenty of recreational space and all ultra-modern amenities. It truly had to be a ‘city’ where all their needs and luxuries could be met.
There is a clear disconnect between what home buyers want and what they get. And it is here that the home buyers are ready to pay more to get what they see to believe. While the frequency of launching new residential projects have declined in the last year or so, there is also sizeable inventory building up that is available for buyers who are willing to make that investment.