Track2Realty: The biggest announcement for the real estate sector proposed by the newly elected Government in its Union Budget 2014–15 was the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) being directed to introduce Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts in India.
Track2Realty: The expanding retail footprint of global brands in India has been a major growth driver of retail real estate in the country. In an effort to map and analyze the spread of international retailers, CBRE undertook a research study of more than 300 prominent global retailers—Expanding Horizons of Global Retailers in India—to identify operating trends, expansion strategies, and extent of penetration across leading cities.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Till very recently, unlike several other industries, real estate used to take a back seat in times of a sluggish market or when there was some controversy around. Any negative market sentiment or slowdown more often than not led to newspapers’ property supplements growing thinner and vacant hoardings in and around city becoming common. Prima facie it was seen to be a sales driven exercise where real estate companies’ approach has been to advertise for selling their product and not creating a brand icon. But that seems to be only half the truth in today’s context as the sector is doling out more money for advertising despite slowdown.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Critics who had till very recently criticised the projection of Noida as a corporate city on the grounds that the city lacks commercial activity and an international airport may soon have reasons enough to eat their own words. Scaling up from just being an affordable destination the seemingly poor cousin of Delhi-NCR is today giving its superior peer markets a tough competition in its march to emerge as a landmark corporate hub.
Track2Realty Exclusive: The financial capital of India, Mumbai has always been reflective of the business confidence of the country. It is a market that shows the way forward for the investors in general and India Inc in particular, be it on the Sensex or the real estate market. It is hence assumed that if the confidence index in the city is low, it will have a percolating effect on the rest of the markets across the country.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Highly speculative markets are always highly susceptible to speculation as such markets are mostly sentiment driven. These are the markets where investors are by and large the project riders and hence the movements in the power corridors do affect the market to a great extent. Coimbatore real estate, on the contrary, is a market which has traditionally been neither susceptible to speculation nor the investors have been on prowl.
Track2Realty: The alarm on a tough upcoming budget was sounded when the newly elected Prime Minister said that “time has come to take tough decisions in the interest of the nation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking all due measures towards his vision of a ‘Shresht Bharat’, amidst some calibrated tough measures.
Track2Realty: The reduced apartment sizes in new launches in 2014 have contributed to making prices more affordable. In the over 50,000 mid segment units (1 and 2 BHKs) of newly launched houses across top eight cities in Quarter 1 of 2014, most cities have seen a reduction in sizes of approximately 100 sf. This has led to an average drop of 6 percent in cost of the apartments within these cities, says a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
Track2Realty: Tata Housing strengthened its presence in the high-end luxury segment in NCR by launching its 4th project Arabella. Located immediately off the Sohna Haryana Highway, Arabella is inspired by the Aravallis and has been aesthetically designed as an extension to the lush green surroundings.
Track2Realty Exclusive: Reeling under compelling economic circumstances that call for financial prudence and tough measures, the first Union Budget of the NDA Government is still reason enough for the real estate sector to exude optimism. It seems the euphoria of a stable government at the Centre is running so deep that despite of the government taking certain tough economic measures before the budget itself and the Reserve Bank of India also not cutting the repo rate down in its recent monetary policy review, the sector is expecting rosy days ahead with the budget being the first catalytic point.