During the boom, many developers dreamed of transforming the urban landscape with millions of square feet of homes, offices and malls and set off on an aggressive expansion financed with debt that at 6 percent interest was cheap by Indian standards.
Realty sector may appear to be bullish and project that downside is over with rosy forecast ahead, yet the decline in fortune is far from being over. As a matter of fact, the learning in the last four years has made most of the leading players to restructure their project portfolio and shed the flab.
Understanding cultural differences is the key to successful workplace change programs in Asia, according to a new report from Jones Lang LaSalle.
Below the line marketing company Theme Ventures has signed a group of well-known real estate companies in Mumbai to sell the residential properties directly to the corporate employees by setting up shops inside the large work premises, the news reports said.
The Competition Commission of India has found cement manufacturers in violation of the provisions of the Competition Act, 2002 which deals with anticompetitive agreements including Cartels. The order was passed pursuant to investigation carried out by the Director General upon information filed by Builders Association of India.
Indian real estate companies, which borrowed heavily during the peak of the economic cycle and rosy business forecast, are now caught in the vortex of piling debt post-slowdown. Most of the realtors who went on a land bank acquisition with borrowed money are struggling to repay even the interest and banks look reluctant to restructure the debt any more.
The Indian banks have been hit the worst with the downturn of the real estate sector. Even after restructuring the loans to the developers, they have a collective deficit of Rs. 7 lakh crore. With spiraling input costs & property prices, demand in the real estate sector has been on a steady downfall. Given the declining demand, it is is unlikely that the real estate companies will be able to repay their bank loans, especially since banks are the only source of funds for the sector.
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.
Leasing and buying activity in the commercial real estate market in India remained sluggish for the first quarter ended March 31 of calendar year (CY) 2012. The total absorption of office space declined 12% in Q1 compared to the Q4 of CY 2011.
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.