CBRE has announced that its Western Region would now be headed by Nikhil Bhatia, based out of Mumbai. Nikhil Bhatia currently co-heads the Capital Markets business for CBRE in India, and shall assume the additional responsibility of managing the firm’s operations for the region.
Dewan Architects & Engineers, architecture and engineering consultancy firm, has drawn up an ambitious plan to expand its footprints in the Indian realty business. The company recently announced its venture into the burgeoning Indian real estate market, in a move that comes as part of Dewan’s strategic expansion plans to reach out to more markets in South East Asia.
Real estate-focused Private Equity Funds are looking at investing in pre-leased commercial projects, including IT Parks and Special Economic Zones (SEZs), as they look for assured returns from their investments.
Anticipating a significant rate cut by the RBI, disappointed real estate community has ring alarm bells and forecast more slump due to the high interest rate regime. Pointing out that the capital and labour intensive sector plays a key role in employment generation and accelerating growth, industry body CREDAI says the government has also been losers of revenue due to neglect of the sector and risks attributed to real estate and the RBI advisories against lending to real estate have only harmed the sector and made housing costlier for consumers, apart from affecting the economy.
Over the last year, there has been an unequivocal crystallization of Indian cities that continue to attract serious investment into real estate. This is directly correlated to the economic dynamics now working in the country. If India is to achieve even a conservative GDP growth of 6% per year, it emerges that only three cities – Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore – have the potential to deliver. The reason for this is that close to 2/3rd of the overall development of office space in the country is now taking place in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
“Supertech invites you to invest in a pre-launch project at an attractive discount,” this SMS has been sent at least 5 times within a week. The bulk SMS, however, fails to acknowledge that many of these unsolicited messages are being delivered to the wrong recipients, including media, in front of whom most of the developers deny to pre-launch the projects any more. As a matter of fact, ever since Supreme Court came down heavily on the pre-launch offer of the developers, various states including Haryana have banned such offers.
What goes into the strategic planning of an integrated township to make it a case study in flagship project? One such integrated township in Mumbai is Kohinoor City at Kurla Vidyavihar. Atul Modak, Head of Kohinoor City says, “What we considered was the need to provide plenty of recreational space and all ultra-modern amenities. It truly had to be a ‘city’ where all their needs and luxuries could be met.
There is a clear disconnect between what home buyers want and what they get. And it is here that the home buyers are ready to pay more to get what they see to believe. While the frequency of launching new residential projects have declined in the last year or so, there is also sizeable inventory building up that is available for buyers who are willing to make that investment.
Within hours of Track2Realty reporting that the much awaited Real Estate Regulatory Bill will not be tabled in the current session of parliament, the government has confirmed it by announcing that the Bill is likely to be presented in the next session of Parliament. The Bill is expected to be tabled before the Union Cabinet shortly, said Aruna Sundararajan, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.
In the coming months, the pressure will be to reduce debt-to-equity ratios. With so many developers in debt already, the industry is trying to come out of the situation and 2012 will not be much different. It won’t be easy and the developers are trying various routes. Selling of developed projects, vacant land is a route taken by many developers. Several developers are now providing attractive terms to PE funds to securing funding.