Gurgaon initially gained prominence as an outsourcing centre for major international companies that found it cheaper to locate their back-end operations in India due to the availability of high-quality but cost-effective employee resources. GE Capital initiated this trend and was the first multinational company to enter Gurgaon in 1997.
The Fitch Ratings 2011 outlook for the Indian real estate sector seems to contradict itself. While it says the realty market is stable in the year, it also warns of a negative bias. The negative forecast of Fitch Ratings is, however, based more on the sentiments than the emerging market reality.
The Enforcement Directorate has asked the intelligence officers in different Indian Missions to check the money trail in the 2G spectrum scam. Special Director, ED has sent out communiqués to Cyprus, Mauritius, British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Isle of Man, Singapore, Dubai, and Tripoli (Libya, Norway).
In the immediate aftermath of the bribes for loan scam involving LIC Housing Finance, the Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in conjunction with Dept of Financial Services asked for a complete monitoring of all the companies mentioned in the CBI case filed. All public sector banks, financial institutions and state owned insurance companies have been asked to examine their exposure to the 21 companies named by CBI in the housing loan scam, and give a subsequent compliance report.
Kumari Selja, Union Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation & Minister of Tourism, has categorically blamed the banks for not facilitating the affordable housing. Inaugurating the 10th National Convention of National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO) at New Delhi the minister said the housing finance sector has witnessed a boom in the recent past due to favorable government policies.
Pune is virtually unrecognizable from the sleepy, laid-back city it was a few decades ago. There were no signs of any significant real estate action in the erstwhile Punyanagari before that. Today, however, Pune numbers in the Top Seven property hotspots within the country.
If 2008 was the year of shock, 2009 the year of discovery & introspection and 2010 the follow-up experiment; the year 2011 promises to be the year of comfort level for the Indian real estate sector. It seems the turmoil of the last couple of years has made everybody come out intelligent–investors, developers, bankers and end users.
There has never been a real decline in the popularity of second homes in India. It certainly is a full-fledged real estate market segment in its own right. However, just as on the first home market, the demand for second homes is driven by the general economic climate. When the economy declines, all real estate segments decline with it. By the same coin, the demand for second homes always rises when people’s spending power increases.
Ramesh Nair, former Managing Director of Jones Lang LaSalle India’s Chennai and Hyderabad regions, has assumed overall responsibility for the company’s Western India operations. West India, which encompasses Mumbai and Pune.
8 out of every ten home buyers in the Indian cities are sulking with the unfair trade practices of the real estate developers. Only 20 per cent of the buyers said they received a defect-free home and timely possession. The low customer satisfaction index was as much evident with developers offering affordable housing as with luxury housing.