The ancient Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ certainly has a lot of pertinence to Indian real estate today. These are doubtlessly ‘interesting’ times for the sector, which has transformed significantly over the last decade. The pace of transformation has been accelerated further by the Central Government’s reformative steps aimed at ushering in ‘Acche Din’ to the realty sector.
The report highlights the key changes in the business environment that are likely to impact CRE requirements and suggests strategies for occupiers and developers to harness the full potential of the opportunities derived from this change. The report also highlights the increased role of investors in changing business environment.
Track2Realty Public Perception Survey, however, proves these assumptions wrong. More than half of Indians, as many as 54%, track the real estate news, analysis and launches even after they have purchase their house. Even more in number, 58%, monitor real estate sector and developers’ performance along with reputation for future investment purposes.
It seems the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has failed to address the struggling and ailing real estate sector from the standpoint of both the homebuyers as well as the developers. However, what is all the more interesting is the fact that the developers are not overtly complaining. It is only the homebuyers who are sulking while the developers are trying best to put up a brave face.
A friendly budget is always on the wish list of everyone. Across the industries the stakeholders, including the consumers, have more or less the same expectations with the Finance Minister to call it a friendly budget. But in the context of the Indian real estate a friendly budget for the sector does not necessarily mean a homebuyer friendly budget.
What would hurt both the buyers as well as the builders is the fact that the property buying and selling would continue to be at standstill. The job market is not picking in any given industry and it would hurt the overall business.
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).
A year back at the end of 2016, the doom mongers were out in force. In our office sector there were those who were predicting a slump in demand, uncertainty around the new Government in the US, the scare stories around automation and AI, the performance of the top 5 Indian ITeS companies, exaggerations around layoffs and even the dramas of corporate Boards of great Indian technology companies.
The year 2017 turned out to be a landmark year for the economy at large and the real estate sector in particular. Several historic reforms and policies were rolled out. Beginning with the Union Budget, the affordable housing received a huge impetus in the form of infrastructure status.
One of the most significant trends the Indian real estate sector saw in 2017, was the infrastructure status given to affordable housing. The government’s vision of achieving Housing for All by 2022 appears a lot more achievable, with steps taken like effectively revising the qualifying criteria.