Track2Realty: India’s economy grew 5.7% y-o-y in Q1 2014 (April–June) beating market consensus forecasts of 5.3%, and showing signs of recovery following annual growth numbers of between 4.4% and 5.2% in each quarter between Q1 2012 and Q4 2013.
Track2Realty: Asian economies compete for greater global influence in terms of business, politics and sociocultural activity. Within economies, cities are the real growth engines. According to The Economic Intelligence Unit’s Hot Spots 2025 (2013) and AT Kearney’s 2014 Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook (2014), leading Indian cities have done well in terms of growing business activity and enhancing human capital.
Track2Realty: Demand for investment-grade office space across leading cities in India slowed down in the first quarter of 2014, with around 6.3 million sq. ft. of Grade A office space getting absorbed The market saw slow transaction activity and a low level of new completions in the first quarter; and leading cities continued to experience caution from corporate occupiers in the first three months of the year.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Analysts have been wondering in the last couple of years that when the property market across the country had been witness to slowdown, how come Coimbatore market kept its momentum up with no visible signs of stress. As a matter of fact, the property prices in the city across the asset class noticed upward movement in the range of 10-15 per cent, thus bucking the trend of slowdown.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Noida has defied the conventional wisdom of economics of late, thanks to the new found interest of the multinational corporations (MNCs) and the NRIs. This is due to the fact that the investment pattern of these two demand drivers have so far been guided by the conventional wisdom of economics that suggests to put money in a relatively mature market, and that too when the macro economic outlook is bright and the sentiments bullish.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The occupier report of office space is often seen as the barometer of the vibrancy of the given property market since it indicates the level of economic activity that sustains all other segment of real estate, residential and commercial in particular. However, in downtown Coimbatore market this premise was never considered for critical evaluation since the market had multiple demand drivers and office uptake was not necessary criterion for any of these demand drivers.
Track2Realty: Office space demand slowed down in the first quarter of 2014, with around 6.3 million sq. ft. of office space getting absorbed across the leading cities of the country as against 6.6 million sq. ft. in Q1 2013—a drop of approximately 5%. Transaction activity was dominated by the National Capital Region (NCR), Bangalore and Chennai—representing about 70% of the total space transacted during the quarter.
Track2Realty: Total net office space absorption recorded a 25% decline in across top eight cities over last year. According to the annual year end estimations by Cushman & Wakefield the total net absorption for 2013 was recorded at 23 million square feet (msf). Most cities have witnessed a decline in net absorption in the range of 20-40% during the year, except Pune where incremental new space take-up increased by 15% in 2013.
Track2Realty Exclusive: In today’s real estate market where projects are more often than not adding only to the inventory, marketing department of respective companies are wondering as to what went wrong in the brand positioning of the project.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Bhiwadi in Alwar district may be seen as a gateway to Rajasthan by many, its emergence as a property hotspot has more to do with the thriving economic activity in the neighbouring state of Haryana. Of course, Rajasthan Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) is also aggressively pushing to make the place a destination magnet.