Track2Realty: Over the past year, Mumbai continued to remain a preferred city for both domestic and foreign brands keen to open their first outlets or expand their presence across India. The city’s favorable demographics, along with the availability of investment-grade retail space, led to strong demand from retailers for shopping space.
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.
Track2Realty: A burgeoning automobile ancillary industry and the IT/ITeS sector’s growing presence have been the major growth drivers behind the notable transformation of Maharashtra’s second largest city—Pune. Over the past couple of years, the city’s IT sector in particular has seen significant growth, leading to sustained demand for office space in the city.
Track2Realty Exclusive: 2014 is the year when, to some extent, not only the real estate market but the economy as a whole will have the impact of being in an election year. This is because real estate gets affected as approvals get delayed during this time. A couple of months before even the State elections, slowdown in deals happens on which new approvals are pending.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Property markets across the country have shoot up in capital and rental values in tandem with the infrastructure development. Infrastructure development and better connectivity are two key elements behind property prices going up. Navi Mumbai, however, presents a different picture with arguably the best infrastructure development and connectivity in Mumbai.
Track2Realty: There has been a 43% increase in Q1 2014 new residential unit launches from the previous quarter. The total estimated unit launches were recorded at 55,500 units across major eight cities of India with Bengaluru recording the largest number of units launched, an increase of 22% from previous quarter, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Track2Realty: Transactions in India’s real estate space might have slowed down over the last two quarters, but the sector has not been overwhelmed by the state of the wider economy. Despite the subdued pre-election economic scenario, in fact, the period observed an increase in private equity activity.