Real estate is known as growing industry. That is why, change is the only constant thing or I must say that the change is the only predictable thing for this industry. We got the know the prediction that real estate will be on peak for residential properties and in the very next week we hear that investing in commercial properties are good for future. Such trend may create dilemma for the prospective buyers and investors.
The best way to update yourself with recent and upcoming trend is to keep your eyes on reliable websites. Information technology is playing very important role in providing information on time, which is needed before taking investment decision.
Monthly Archives: August 2009
TDI invests for budget homes
TDI is planning to invest one thousand crore rupees to build low-priced homes in NCR in the next three years.
TDI managing director Kamal Taneja said, “The demand for homes is coming back slowly”. TDI recently launched 350 residential units in Kundli and asserts to have sold all these in just a month.
The company is now planning to launch another 350 homes over the weekend in Kundli, around 35 kilo meters from central Delhi. The 900 square feet independent floor homes will be priced between Rs 16.50-19.50 lakh. A total of 700 homes entailing an investment of around one thousand crore rupees would come up in Kundli over the next 3 years.
Real estate demand revitalizes
The global economic slowdown has provided end users a unique opportunity to buy their sweet homes as prices in many areas in National Capital Region have fallen steeply. Apartments are now available in some markets at almost 50 percent of the prevailing price a couple of years ago. The average price in Gurgaon has fallen by almost thirty percent and in Noida by more than fifteen percent in last two year.
According to PropEquity, Noida and Faridabad demonstrated high absorption primarily due to launch of affordable housing projects. The projects of Jaypee in Noida and BPTP in Faridabad were primarily driving the high absorption values in these cities with these developers commanding more than seventy percent of the market share for the period of Jan-Jun ’09. Noida maintained its top position in NCR with the launch of 7,032 units, and beats Gurgaon by a large margin of over 2,300 units.
However, the slowdown had its effect on the timely delivery of apartments. Unavailability of finances and lack of demand have forced developers to go slow in implementing projects, which were launched earlier. According to the report, amongst the cities witnessing the maximum number of delays in project completion, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon had 71 percent of the projects under implementation falling behind schedule.
Piramal Sunteck buys two Cidco plots
Piramal Sunteck Realty purchased two plots in Navi Mumbai for more than thirty-one crore rupees. In all five plots, measuring around eleven thousand square meter were put on the block by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco) for a total cost of eighty crore rupees.
Piramal Sunteck had put in a bid for all five plots. The bids for the other three plots were bagged by Millennium Enterprise, Atul Aggarwal & Sons and Prajapati Constructions. It is learnt that the Piramal-Sunteck group plans to develop its two plots for residential and commercial purposes. Residential development will account for 75%.
Cidco had invited bids for these plots around one month back. These plots are located in Airoli with a size ranging from fifteen hundred square meters to thirty-five hundred square meters. The successful completion of these bids comes not too long after the bid for Finlay Mill was scrapped. NTC is learnt to be looking for higher valuations as compared to the bid for Rs 710 crore by Lodha Developers.
IFCI expands in real estate business
Financial institution IFCI will amplify its existence in the real estate business. After serviced apartment project in Delhi, IFCI Infrastructure Development Ltd (IIDL) will launch three similar projects in Lucknow, Guwahati and Chennai.
To woo foreign traveller, IIDL signed a contract with Singapore’s Frasers Hospitality to manage its serviced apartment property named Fraser Suites in the capital city. IIDL is planning to develop a total of two million square feet area in the three cities.
CEO and MD of IFCI Atul kumar Rai said that IIDL would shortly start developing serviced apartments at other locations. He said that the company would also like to buy lands in the auctions of governments land development authority.
IIDL has plans in hand to develop two million square feet commercial space. CEO of IIDL said that if they get other striking proposal to develop residential projects, they would undoubtedly think about them.
Can Affordable house become your dream house
When we think about affordable house, a picture of congested home, situated far away from the city, comes in mind. Such images are pulling the buyers away from investing money. Builders are forced to think about cost cutting without compromising buyers expectations.
Puravankara is using cost effective construction techniques like prefabricated homes. Basically, your home would be built out of a mould and then fixed on to the mainframe structure of the building. This technology could bring construction cost down by up to 30% and speed up the delivery time by up to 24 months as compared to conventional construction techniques.
Affordable housing is all about reengineering of design and optimal usage of materials, which can bring costs down by 15% to 17%. If builders use such techniques to cut the cost then affordable house will also known as Dream house. Affordable housing is not about compromising on quality and comforts.
Real estate- the best investment destination
The economic slump had a major impact on real estate. The price has come down over the last few months. People with a huge disposable income can explore investing in real estate for diversification of their assets. Reduced home loan interest rates and lower property prices makes it an opportunity hard to resist.
Some investments are considered safe in times of recession like precious metals and foreign currencies. In this list of investments that are popular during times of financial insecurity, real estate can be included.
Real estate is considered a hedge against forces of inflation. Inflation has led to the rupee value depreciating and property prices travelling upwards. Property investments are usually held over a long term.
Green buildings in demand
New trend of real estate industry is the green building concept. Such green buildings are environment friendly and energy efficient. A green building uses less energy, water and natural resources, creates less waste and is healthier for the people compared to a standard building. According to Mr. Ajay Mathur, Director General for Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) under the Ministry of Power, “Today, India has close to 30 million square feet of green buildings; an amazing achievement given the fact that we had only about 20,000 square feet in 2003 when the movement started here”.
These buildings are wooing more and more buyers day by day. Green buildings are in existence from 2007 and now various Government organizations are spreading awareness and popularizing its energy efficiency feature.
Real estate rentals come down
The trend of Delhi/ NCR shows a huge fall in commercial real estate rentals. It is well known that companies are moving their offices from gurgaon to other areas of NCR because of the high rental costs there. Most of the commercial areas in delhi are offering fully furnished office spaces at much lower cost. This trend has made a tremendous change in gurgaon commercial rental market. However, a clear scenario will be visible in near future but the change is on its way.
I think companies are doing dual cost cutting by moving their offices to other areas. First cost cutting is clear to everyone that is by reduction in rental cost. Second one is bit indirect. As it is known that gurgaon is well known commercial area. Every company provides conveyance facility to their employees because most of the employees come from other areas. If company shifts, the transportation cost will definitely reduce.
Two million affordable houses required
Affordable housing is the only solution for the middle income indians. Most of the people are in search of affordable homes in metros particularly in delhi/ ncr, bangalore, chennai and pune. According to the report by Knight Frank Research Households with an annual income between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 10 lakh in Mumbai, NCR, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune will need 1.65 billion square feet of space in coming couple of year. This trend may help developers to launch affordable house projects. But to make their projects more feasible, developers should think that their projects should not be in to far fringes area. It should be properly connected to the city and easy transportation should be available to the main places of the city specially the railway stations and airport.
Real estate is back on track
According to CREDAI, real estate sector is picking up in both residential and commercial sector. Both real estate sectors are getting more and more enquiries. Along with enquiries, demand in both sectors has also increased. However, there are various major and minor factors behind this, but two major factors are, affordable housing concept and reduction in home loan rates. Investors have more choice and offer these days.
Mr. Raj Menda, President of CREDAI-Karnatak announced a 2 day realty expo starting from 15th of this month. This realty expo will showcase 150 properties. During this announcement Mr. Menda said that there is a growth of 60% in March of this year as compared to December last year.
Realty regulator is needed
HDFC chairman Mr. Deepak Parekh said that there is need of real estate regulator at state level to deal with issues concerning the housing sector. He pointed out that the Government should layout an institutional framework for a real estate regulator. Regulators’ role would be to regulate the affordable housing agenda, promote real estate reforms and ensure transparency especially by mandating that flats be sold only on carpet area and act as a platform to protect buyers from real estate deceit. Mr. Parekh suggested that affordable housing has to be enable to cut all income segments and has to make economic sense in terms of distance from work place.
Realty regulator is needed
Government should layout an institutional framework for a real estate regulator. Regulators’ role would be to regulate the affordable housing agenda, promote real estate reforms and ensure transparency especially by mandating that flats be sold only on carpet area and act as a platform to protect buyers from real estate deceit. Mr. Parekh suggested that affordable housing has to be enable to cut all income segments and has to make economic sense in terms of distance from work place.
Peninsula Land to raise QIP
Real estate company Peninsula Land is planning to raise a qualified institutional placement of five hundred crore rupees for acquiring land in Mumbai. Peninsula Land has already recognized five plots in Parel, Lower Parel, Kanjurmarg and Thane. The raised capital will be used for acquiring new properties. The company currently has a board approval to raise up to seven hundred and fifty crore rupees and will make a decision on the final amount to be raised in its annual general meeting.
Gurgaon lose its position of the biggest real estate rental
Gurgaon used to be the preferred place for office rental. During the last couple of months, office rental increased tremendously. This led many companies to think about moving their offices to other cities. Even the lock-in period has failed to stop the companies to shift. Companies are also getting fully furnished offices at almost half the rates compared to what they were paying. Due to such trend, the demand for furnished office space is on the rise in Delhi as well as in all the major towns of the country. Companies prefer to start their office in furnished offices rather than starting them in bare commercial place.
Let us find some positive aspects of recession
Everybody is cursing recession as it resulted into slowdown in market. But, have you ever realized that there is always some positive aspect behind every off-putting phase. Recession has changed the point of views of consumers, lenders and developers as well. Consumers became more cautious during spending their saved money. On the other hand developers shifted their focus towards low cost housing.
Recession has made tremendous changes in real estate, various real estate giants showed interest in housing for middle class people rather than building a huge complex. Investors may seem to be winners with recession giving them an opportunity to pick investments at more realistic prices.
Money raising by realty-focused PEs sluggish
Money by realty-focused PEs declined to over a four-year-low level in April-June quarter of this year as institutional investors remained uncertain in committing capital. Investors have turned carefull and are now looking at more established markets. In this quarter, 21 real estate funds made aggregate commitments of 10.3 billion US dollars, down 72.16% from 37 billion US dollars in a year period.
During this time of instability, investors are especially cautious and therefore they are looking towards more established markets, rather than emerging markets.
Anticipating slump in demand amid the global economic downturn, various investors have reviewed their investment portfolios and reconsider their allocations to PE real estate.
Slump in retail rentals
As per CBRE, New Delhi witnessed a decline in retail rentals of 25% and ranked 69th in rentals among the list of major cities across the world during the Q1 of this year.
Demand for retail space has decreased in most markets across the world as consumers cut back on spending and unemployment continues to rise in many countries. New Delhi in India saw a 25% decline in last 6 months.
Upward move in commercial realty
The commercial real estate market is slowly reviving as higher government incomes and an improving economy are prompting customers to invest. Developers say that there are more enquiries from investors.
Many developers, instead of selling their properties, are signing rental deals. In one recent deal, global consultant KPMG signed a deal with Lodha Developers for renting out a 130,000 square feet property at Mahalaxmi in central Mumbai, for a monthly rental of Rs 160 per square feet.
The company has 5commercial projects in Mumbai, in areas such as Parel, Worli and Thane. Recently, Lodha also bid Rs 710 crore for NTC’s 10.3-acre Finlay Mill land in central Mumbai.
Similarly, in a recent transaction in the commercial property space, investor C Sivasankaran acquired a 66% stake in a commercial property SPV from DLF for Rs 310 crore. Akruti City is the other investor in the SPV.
Puravankara buys sixty-two acres in Bangalore
Provident Housing is a fully-owned subsidiary of the Bangalore-based Puravankara Group. Provident housing is learnt to have bought a 62-acre land parcel in the outskirts of Bangalore. The deal is believed to have been struck for a value of 150 crore rupees. The deal between Provident Housing and the seller, who is an individual, was signed earlier this month.
The land parcel is located on the Mysore road around half-an-hour away from the heart of Bangalore. This is said to be an outright purchase with Provident Housing, scheduled to make the payment in two tranches. In the first stage, the buyer has paid a nominal token amount at the time of signing the agreement and the balance would be paid when the project is completed.
Recently, many real estate developers have been exploring opportunities in the affordable housing sector. The Puravankara Group will have these projects in Chennai and Bangalore and is negotiating deals in Hyderabad and Coimbatore. It is learnt that deals in Hyderabad and Coimbatore will be finalized in a month.