Track2Realty Exclusive: Investment in real estate has been a widely debated topic, dissected in great detail. For the past few years, India has been shining, has been one of the preferred destinations for real estate investments and has attracted capital infusion from foreign institutional investors/foreign funds as well as domestic players, both institutional and retail investors.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Real estate markets across the country have the uniform pattern of being speculative if the given market is high on the wish list of investors. On the contrary, end-user driven markets are always modest in appreciation but nevertheless carry genuine appreciation and provide a level playing field to all the stake holders, including the buyers.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The Real Estate Regulation Bill will define and clarify various concepts in the sector; this will bring in transparency and curb unfair practices. Following the trend seen in other sectors like telecom, banking, insurance etc, the Bill provides for creation of a separate Regulator and Appellate Authority. While it is expected to provide specialized regulation and enforcement, this should not become another regulatory in the ‘approval’ matrix.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Every project is launched with the presumption of existing demand in the given catchment area. If that be the reason the sector should not have been sitting over a record inventory. Track2Realty tries to explore what defines demand and how the flawed concept of demand leads to demand-supply mismatch. It is a grey zone for the real estate which hits where it hurts the most to the developers, yet most of them try to justify launches and shrug off the subject.
Track2Realty: As consumers continued to face inflation and high interest rates in April, average household spending seemed unlikely to recover in the near term. Subdued market sentiments looked likely to continue unless consumer confidence began to rise.
Track2Realty Exclusive: To say that the Indian business community in general and the real estate developers in particular desperately wanted a change in the business outlook and hence change in the government would be stating the obvious. For the last couple of years they were cribbing about policy paralysis, inflation, and negative sentiments, and hence the developers are visibly elated with the change of guard at the Centre.
Track2Realty Exclusive: A report released by BNP Paribas earlier this year on realty firms found that each of them performed poorly on one or more of the parameters. Some of the assessment parameters include compensation structure, ability to retain key personnel, financial stability, pending litigation and trading in own stock.
Track2Realty: The Housing Sentiment Index (IIMB MB HIS) assessed by IIM Bangalore and Magicbricks forecasts that homebuyers across 8 of the 10 cities surveyed expect real estate prices to rise over the next six months. The aggregate Housing Sentiment Index (HSI) measured across 10 cities this quarter stood at 108. (An HSI score of 100 suggests the prices would remain static).
Track2Realty Exclusive: Prophets of doomsday in Mumbai who till only recently have written off the growth of the city and its realty market due to saturation and infrastructural bottlenecks are today very apprehensive lot. The proposed industrial corridors promise to open the floodgates of new investment opportunities and make them eat their own words. Mumbai which has been facing stiff competition with certain other emerging markets is expected to redefine the financial capital of the country once the first corridor Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project is over and investors find avenues like gold mine on the ground.
Track2Realty: Total inflows in the real estate sector for the first quarter of 2014 were recorded at INR 2,800 crores (USD 460 million), witnessing an increase of 28% compared to the previous quarter and nearly 2.5 times the investment in Q1 2013, says Cushman & Wakefield’s report on private equity (PE) investments in real estate.