Track2Realty: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday, June 26, ordered the Mumbai police Crime Branch to file an FIR against four persons, including Hiranandani Developers co-founder and managing director Niranjan Hiranandani and two police officers, in a complaint filed by a 28-year-old woman from Powai.
Track2Realty: With the new government now firmly in charge of steering the country, the Indian economy is perched on the threshold of recovery and growth. The serious issues that have plagued the sector for so long may now be proactively addressed.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The Government of India has been re-evaluating policy measures and modifying these or initiating fresh mandates in order to give a boost to the industry. Changes in policies pertaining to SEZs towards reducing area requirements, the easing of norms for external commercial borrowing (ECB) for development of affordable housing and the augmentation of limits for listed NCDs will go a long way in clearing bottlenecks faced by the sector.
Track2Realty: Over fifty percent of real estate buyers decisions are influenced by Internet research. The phenomenon, of researching online for real estate information is not limited to metros but also extended to buyers in tier II cities, as per the study of Google India. The study was conducted to understand the influence of Internet on real estate purchase decisions in India.
Track2Realty: In India’s competitive real estate market, luxury housing projects have been launched aplenty over the last couple of years. So much so that a conservative market like Chennai, for instance, is likely to witness about 1,500 units of ultra-luxury homes—budgeted between Rs. 5–20 crore—within the next 12 months.
Track2Realty: Cumulative commercial real estate loans have tripled to reach INR 1.428 billion in the last six years up to November 2013, whereas individual housing loans doubled to reach INR 5.185 billion during the same period.
Track2Realty: Expectations of an economic turnaround were belied with GDP growth slowing down to about 4.7% for FY 2013–14, marking it as the second straight year with below-5% growth.
Track2Realty: For the quarter ended March 2014, nearly US$800 million was invested into India’s real estate sector. This translates to almost Rs.4,800 crore having been injected into the sector through the private equity route over the past few months. This couldn’t have happened at a more opportune timefor a sector faced with a liquidity crunch, high land acquisition costs, and stringent due diligence from the banking sector—which continues to perceive real estate as a high-risk domain in India.
Track2Realty: Cushman & Wakefield has expanded into Malaysia with a new office in Kuala Lumpur that is C&W’s 35th office in Asia Pacific.
Track2Realty: The emerging cities continue to dominate the rental growth in the region with Jakarta (Indonesia) witnessing the highest office rental growth (yoy) among 33 cities in Asia, followed by Manila (Philippines) at 2nd position and Shenzhen (China) at 3rd Pune (India) at 4th position while NCR (India) ranked at 10, says Asia Office Q1 2014 report of Cushman & Wakefield.