The retail real estate market received a fresh mall supply of approximately 1.94 million sq. ft. (msf) in Q1 2012 (quarter ending March 2012). Many of the expected mall projects were differed on account of delay in construction, leading to a deficit of close to 50% from the estimated supply (3.37 msf) for the quarter, says Cushman & Wakefield in its latest report.
Even as the cost of housing is skyrocketing in Mumbai, an ambitious proposal to create at least 500,000 houses as part of a “Homes for All” initiative between the real estate industry and the Maharashtra Government is gathering dust in the ministry.
Ravi Sinha: To sum up the discussion, what kind of funding do you see emerging in the coming year?
Is the Indian real estate sector the right place to make a serious career in now? Compared to more developed countries, the Indian real estate sector still lacks sophistication and transparency. However, it continues to be in the limelight of domestic and international investments. This has naturally brought on the need for better, more capable human resources.
The much awaited verdict of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on real estate developers’ complaint against cartelisation among cement companies is expected next week.
The Finance Ministry is building safeguards to ensure realty companies do not misuse the external commercial borrowing (ECB) window announced in the Budget by diverting the money.
It is no more portfolio diversification that is driving the real estate developers into medical realty, it is rather a serious business as Track2Realty observes. After all, no other vertical of realty is as resilient to macro economic conditions as healthcare realty and it also needs more space than retail in the year ahead.
Sunil Dahiya: What is happening is that we imported certain professionals from other industries and somewhere the vision and mission of the promoter was fueled by their greed or professionalism. They called it financial engineering. And that was the reason we got blocked from the IPO market. Today, whoever has filed DRHP, is going to face so much scrutiny and the band value itself will be discounted by 30%.
In addition to professionalism, enacting laws to enforce high standards of disclosure, transparency and corporate governance within the realty sector are also needed in order to minimize investor risk. Specifically with consumer interests in mind, there must be a redressal or complaint handling mechanism that provides much needed recourse against customer grievances.
Godrej Properties has announced that it has entered into an agreement for developing approximately 1.36 acres of land in the posh area of Alipore on Burdwan Road, in Kolkata.