Affordable housing, though a widely-used term in India, actually means different things to different sets of demographics. The definition of ‘affordable’ is heavily influenced by the socio-economic variables that drive a certain city or location.
Viewed dispassionately, the current government’s ‘Housing for all by 2022’ promise seems a bit unrealistic at the moment, as the modalities and concrete steps needed to be undertaken to achieve this goal have not been spelled out. Making 2 crore urban houses and 4 crore rural houses available is a huge undertaking in itself, and will require not only sustained government interest and investment but also substantial private sector investment and involvement.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The property markets of the financial capital Mumbai and the political capital Delhi has always been exposed to the reality that it is the expat Indians, the working class professionals, who are the key demand drivers of property. However, in the last over a decade or so this outlook on the migrant work force has become a pan-India phenomenon.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Not that Hitender Tyagi of Noida was a prosperous landlord, yet he felt like the one with his small piece of 12 acre of agricultural land. Today this ailing farmer feels like a pauper who was forced to do away with his source of bread and butter as his land was forcibly acquired by the Noida Authority.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The time of transition for the Indian real estate and construction sector has finally arrived. Since last few years, a number of regulations pertaining to the real estate market were put on hold. A number of them are now at the draft stage waiting for Parliament’s approvals.
Track2Realty: Smart Cities: The New Age Concept: The smart cities concept may not be a novel one, but in the Indian context it is definitely an idea whose relevance couldn’t have been better timed. The government has provided the thrust towards development of such cities, and needs to be now backed by a holistic concept.
Track2Realty: The economic growth rates in Asia are likely to lead the world—creating demand for built spaces, triggering business expansion, and inducing businesses to occupy retail premises and office properties.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Perhaps no other segment of Indian real estate would have taken as much beating as the retail one. With consumerism down due to overall slowdown in the economy, e-commerce emerging big to challenge the malls and the high streets back with innovations, it seems the mall developers had abosiltely no idea as to how to deal with the emerging market realities. Track2Realty Focus 2015 takes a look at how the promising retail in India could not benefit retail realty in its performance.
Track2Realty Exclusive: In the last few years a perception has gained ground within the built environment of Indian real estate that the environmental concerns are at loggerheads with the development. The collective consciousness seems to have believed that the real estate and infrastructure projects often compromise with the environmental concerns and to make a balance between the inevitable urbanisation and avoiding the natural erosion is not that easy.
Track2Realty: New residential unit launches across top eight cities declined by 12% y-o-y in 2014 with total launch of 153,000 units. The top three cities of Bengaluru (27%), NCR (17%) and Mumbai (16%) comprised of 60% of the total new launches in 2014, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.