Track2Realty: With a consistent track record for delivering the highest value to home buyers and investors alike, Pune’s real estate market has remained one of the most vibrant and exciting in India. By attracting more and more international and IT/ITeS companies to establish their operations, the city has been generating jobs at a scale which is unmatched by any of the other Indian metros.
Track2Realty: As we move closer to the Union Budget 2015–16, India’s real estate sector is hoping for certain key expectations to get implemented. Following the Government’s announcements of building SMART Cities in the Budget last year, the industry seeks more clarity on the exact definition of one in the Indian context, fund allocations for, and city/Greenfield location identification of such development. The implementation of such ambitions would ultimately result in national wealth creation—to help our cities become sustainable and livable urban centers of growth.
Track2Realty: Prabhat Ranjan, co-founder of Brick Eagle, a financial services platform for the affordable housing industry, has forayed into real estate development, incorporating a new venture Olympeo Infrastructure. The company has launched its first project Olympeo Riverside, an integrated township spread across 25 acres on the banks of Ulhas River, in the Neral-Karjat belt, an extended Mumbai suburb.
Track2Realty Exclusive: It has indeed been a busy year and 2014 can well be described as the year of roller coaster emotions where the business confidence index was exposed to two extreme ends of swing. In an otherwise flat year, the real estate sector may not have been witness to transactions on ground but the poetic engagement has definitely been at the emotional level.
Track2Realty: The year 2014 has been quite fruitful for the real estate sector in terms of business sentiment, although the real effect of many of the policies and amendments announced in 2014 will take effect only in 2015. Starting from Union Budget FY2014-15, where affordable housing was considered on par with infrastructure, to relaxation of rigidities in the Land Acquisition and Real Estate Regulatory Bill, India’s new Prime Minister has been offering the India real estate sector consistent doses of energy.
Track2Realty: Among the various regulations adopted in real estate development, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) is one of the most critical ones because it decides the intensity of development which is permitted in a certain area. Recently, the fact that the urban development ministry raised the FAR for residential areas in Delhi to 200% made headlines news because this will lead to a significant increase in built-up areas in many parts of the city, thereby infusing critically needed residential supply.
Track2Realty Exclusive: If consistent rental market is a tool to analyse the true growth potential of the given property market, then Pune is probably the most resilient market. Rental index is often used to assess the demand and supply indicators as and when there is an affordability issue borne out of macro-economic indicators.
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 Exclusive: FICCI has recently released Real Estate Sentiment Index for Q3-2014. The report is also supported by sensitive data being put forth by one of the world’s leading independent real estate consultancy, Knight Frank. The index or a very formal survey conducted by the joint efforts of these two independent organizations revealed a lot about Indian realty market.
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.