According to a World Bank report, India received USD 79 billion in remittances in 2018 – with a sizeable portion going into real estate. NRI investments into Indian real estate are led Indian expatriates from UAE, USA, UK, and Canada. In terms of Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi-NCR currently attract the lion’s share of NRI investments.
Once completed, Jewar International Airport will not only ease traffic at Delhi’s IGI Airport but also create multiple job opportunities and give decent impetus to the property market in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway. These markets have been reeling under tremendous pressure over the last three to four years, and require a fresh injection of opportunity and intent to overcome this slump.
Over-supply has been oft-repeated blame game for slow property absorption across the country. However, in most of the cases this over-supply is a misunderstood term. In a country where the housing shortage is huge, any mention of over-supply is misleading in the first place. In most of the property markets, it is the demand & supply mismatch which is termed as over-supply.
DLF has signed its second joint venture with HINES. DLF Home Developers Limited (“DHDL”), a wholly owned subsidiary of DLF Limited (“DLF”), and Green Horizon Trustee (an affiliate of “HINES”) have entered into a Joint Venture for developing a high-end commercial project in Gurugram.
This policy ‘trishul’ brought about a paradigm shift in the way Indian real estate does business and laid the groundwork for improved transparency and efficiency in the sector. However, while end-user and investor confidence were rekindled for real estate, it did not exactly set the industry on fire with renewed interest.
Affordable housing was given the much-coveted infrastructure status, and the very definition of affordable housing has been tweaked to accommodate more inventory under this key category. Moreover, the previously highly speculative markets of NCR and MMR have been tamed and are, in fact, leading the thrust of affordable housing today.
Currently, there is 4.0 million sq ft of operational Grade A office stock and an additional 5.7 million sq ft of new supply scheduled through 2021. As per Colliers Research, occupiers are considering North Bengaluru for expansion and consolidation as infrastructure improves in the area and supply becomes available.
PEL had previously announced a strategic co-investment fund with Ivanhoé Cambridge, to provide long term equity capital to blue chip residential developers across the five major metro cities in India (Mumbai, Bengaluru, NCR, Pune and Chennai). Ivanhoé Cambridge had allocated an initial US$ 250 Mn towards this fund.
Gross leasing activity is recorded at 50 million square feet in 2018, highest in last eight years driven by buoyant leasing in Bengaluru and NCR. Compared to the previous year, gross leasing increased by 17% as occupiers continued to expand and consolidate. The top 3 sectors contributing to gross leasing were IT-ITeS with 43%, flexible workplaces with 14% and BFSI with 12% share.
While 2018 lived up to a fair number of expectations, there were a few misses too, particularly in the case of clarity on GST norms. Key highlights of 2018 were the creation of positive sentiments in the market by way of a robust office space absorption by emerging segments, as well as increase in the number of new launches and sales in the affordable housing sector.