Track2Realty: The economic growth rates in Asia are likely to lead the world—creating demand for built spaces, triggering business expansion, and inducing businesses to occupy retail premises and office properties.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Perhaps no other segment of Indian real estate would have taken as much beating as the retail one. With consumerism down due to overall slowdown in the economy, e-commerce emerging big to challenge the malls and the high streets back with innovations, it seems the mall developers had abosiltely no idea as to how to deal with the emerging market realities. Track2Realty Focus 2015 takes a look at how the promising retail in India could not benefit retail realty in its performance.
Track2Realty: India’s retail market value was estimated at $520 billion in 2013, and is expected to grow to $950 billion by 2018. With a CAGR currently pegged at 13%, the Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific Region – with its market size doubling every 2-2.5 years. This certainly gives us reason for deep introspection. While the global growth rate of online shoppers is estimated at 8-10%, India currently has more than 10 million online shoppers.
Track2Realty: Residential sales declined by approximately 30% y-o-y by the end of 2014 in the seven leading cities of the country, largely due to high price points, sticky interest rates and cautious buyer sentiments. The decline, which was noted across all major cities, was particularly steep in the DelhiNCR (National Capital Region).The slowdown was reported in the premium/luxury as well as the high-end/mid-end housing segments.
Track2Realty Exclusive: 2014 was an eventful year for the commercial real estate market in India. The economic outlook in the first half of the year was uninspiring. Coupled with political uncertainty this resulted in investors and occupiers stalled making any real estate decisions. Business confidence was at its lowest. The sentiment changed dramatically in the second half post the national elections as it became clear that there would a ‘new’ stable government.
Track2Realty Exclusive:Following nearly two years of sub-5% growth due to currency volatility, high inflation and fiscal deficits, poor investment and market sentiment scenario, India’s economy bounced back with a growth rate of 5.7% during the April–June period of FY 2014–15, up from 4.6% in the preceding quarter. With business prospects improving across key sectors, the economy is expected to display further improvements in the next quarter.
Track2Realty: Sentiment around Indian real estate among both domestic and international investors has improved in recent times, following the election of a new government and also on account of an upturn in consumer demand, says theEmerging Trends in Real Estate® Asia Pacific 2015 report, published jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Track2Realty: With the rapidly changing profile of consumers the world over, it remains a challenge for retailers to keep up with shifting shopping demands. Shoppers today are more discerning and better informed about products and services than ever before, expecting a certain standard of shopping experience from retailers.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The increasing shift of corporate focus towards Noida has been a matter of both research and speculation in the region. While the critics would like to point out that the shift of the Indian business community and the Multi National Companies (MNCs) have been more due to recent economic slowdown that made the scale of economy unviable in the high rental destinations like Gurgaon, the optimists within the built environment would prefer to look at the traction points of the city.
Track2Realty: The completion of several large transactions—including a couple of deals worth overUS$ 500 million each—pushed up the total real estate investment volume in the Asia Pacific region in the June–September period to US$ 35 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of about 40% (as per the CBRE APAC Capital Markets MarketView Q3 2014 report).