If the CBD of a given city is losing its sheen, there can be only two diametrically opposite reasons – one, the economy of the city is collapsing and the other is that the city has created many new centers of economic activity.
Known for fresh water lakes of Himayath Sagar and Osman Sagar, Rajendra Nagar for long had been known for the Shamshabad Airport and the Mrugavani National Park. But today the area is also famous for some of the quality educational institutions, like Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD) and Andhra Pradesh Prohibition and Excise Academy. There are also many international schools in the area.
The new regulatory regime is largely about steps, which include streamlining approval processes, simplifying taxation (GST), building institutional capacity, as also introducing urban planning and real estate-related reforms (RERA and REITs).
In Pune, on the contrary, IT/ITeS may be one of the high demand zones for education, yet it is not that only IT/ITeS driven educational institutions are flourishing. As a matter of fact, and industry players agree to it, education sector has grown in the city in all the segments, be it IT/ITeS or any other professional/vocational education.
There are five locations across Mumbai that offer better rental returns than the average rental in the city. These are the markets where the average rental values are in the range of 3% and above. These markets are spread across the Eastern and Western Suburbs.
What makes Mumbai a global real estate market to bet on? There are many USPs of the city property market to make it a global property market, like luxury landscape of the city; its positioning as a job market; social life of Mumbai; investment in the city; appreciation potential; and insulation against price crash. Mumbai is one of those markets that have also weathered the slowdown challenges without crash; not even New York, London or Dubai have this distinction.
The MMR was notified in 1967, in an effort to address the rising problems faced by inhabitants. More areas were also included in the region and today the MMR covers Greater Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan and Navi Mumbai, apart from several more towns and villages. Over the years, property price rise has been astronomical in the original core parts of Mumbai.
Mumbai has been the undisputed financial capital of India. The emergence of other business destinations, like Bangalore, Gurgaon or Pune could not take the sheen out of the city, even in the wake of infrastructure deficit and other urban problems plaguing the peninsular city. Now the Mumbai city is poised to elevate itself to the next level of business destination. The MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority) plans to make Mumbai a major global financial hub.
Urban planning experts believe this is a much deeper question because it is not just about the existing urban centres but also about the way urbanisation is eventually going to happen in this country. As per the UN statistics the urban population of 40 crore in India would be 60 crore in less than 20 years of time. It clearly suggests that the existing cities won’t be able to fit in this additional 20 crore population, whether indigenous or migrants.
‘Location, Location & Location’ has been the tried and tested format of success in the Indian real estate. It has been the best calling card for the developers. Many even assumed that if the developer has got a piece of land in any of the highly desirable locations, that itself is enough to sell the project.