The city with a penchant for villas is mostly moving towards the periphery locations. In those locations the land cost is still very affordable. The buyers, mostly local communities, are preferring these plotted villas. Since the developers do not have the construction finance to bother, they can even hold it in the wake of slow sales.
Even as India’s middle-class grapples with the prospect of an uncertain future in their careers and financial ability – the main drivers of housing demand – the rise of India’s super-rich continues unabated. According to Credit Suisse report, there were an estimated 3.42 lakh dollar-millionaires in India as on mid-2018 who collectively held around USD 6 trillion. It is forecast that 5.26 lakh Indian dollar millionaires’ wealth will be around USD 8.8 trillion by 2023. Market fluctuations make very little difference to the personal networth of these individuals.
Traditionally, the festive quarter fares better than the previous quarters of the year when it comes to housing sales – the combination of religious sentiment and festive deals and freebies is a potent mix during this part of the year. For instance, Q4 2015 saw 70,000 homes sold in the seven major cities. However, as tempting as it was for developers to believe that this was an unshakeable performance standard, it was certainly shaken just a year later. After demonetization (DeMo) was announced in this critical quarter in 2016, housing sales halved to 32,100 units.
In the ‘golden years’ of India’s housing market, property was the default go-to option for big-ticket investment. With real estate’s fading allure, investors began exploring other options and found them to quite rewarding. For instance, they can invest in a start-up with sums as ‘low’ as INR 10 lakhs. Many entrepreneurially-inclined Indians find the potential ROI (as high as 15% in many instances) makes more sense. Mutual funds provide good returns and the entry level is low enough to be affordable to many.
Sensing the potential of the student housing market, many start-ups have entered the fray. Student housing providers such as Oxfordcaps, Tribestays, PLACIO, Stanza Living, Campus Student Communities, Housr, Simplyguest, etc. currently operate in Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Noida, Mumbai, Indore, Dehradun, Ahmedabad and Jaipur. The top 10 players in the organized student housing space collectively operating slightly over 75,000 beds with plans to touch nearly 2 lakh beds by 2020.
It was not the magic wand it was hoped to be. However, over the past two years, the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) has brought more sanity – and the return of consumer power – than seemed possible in such a short time. The real estate sector is still struggling with it and the Act is very much work-in-progress in many states, but RERA nevertheless hangs like a sword of Damocles over a previously unregulated industry. Eventual compliance across the board seems inevitable.
Dubai has always been a popular destination for Indians, not just for vacationing and shopping, but for the overall aspirational lifestyle it offers. Due to Dubai’s diverse population and cosmopolitan lifestyle, the city offers its residents and businesses a unique environment enriched with hundreds of cultures and a quality of life and work unrivalled in the Middle East.
While consolidation has been an ongoing phenomenon for some time, recent mergers, acquisitions and joint developments are underscoring this trend like never before. The Indian residential sector saw a series of disruptions in the last two to three years, with revolutionary reforms like DeMo, RERA and GST remarkably altering the way real estate business is conducted. A natural by-product of this upheaval was consolidation, with fly-by-night developers completely vanishing and small players merging with big ones.
Construction for 4.9 million units has begun and 2.6 million units of which have been completed. Given the past trend, additional 1.64 million houses are likely to be sanctioned by December 2019, making it highly possible to achieve the 10 million houses target by 2022. Projected subsidy disbursement over next 3 year for the same is projected to INR 1 trillion.
Steady economic growth, favourable policy environment, growing preference of global occupiers for Indian offices and listing of first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in the country have put the India office market on a growth path, according to the half yearly update (H1 2019 – January to June 2019) by JLL India.