With India’s economy finally growing its pace, Pune’s real estate market is now slowly witnessing a move in the forward direction in regard to the residential sector with a high rise in new residential launches. As prices are now stable and cheap after the announcement of the new set of rules in the Union Budget 2017, experts say that the auspicious occasion of Gudi Padwa will set a right tone in the minds of buyers to set their pace in investing new property in Pune.
With the storm of demonetisation slowly calming and settling down, Pune real estate is again starting to gather its momentum now. Gudi Padwa, according to experts is expected to give the sector a high increase in demands as residents of Maharashtra prefer home investments on the day. After slowly following this upward movement, Pune’s real estate market is expecting the past inquiries to be smoothly translated into sales. It has been noted that Pune has a huge unsold inventory of its real estate has slowed down since the past one and half years. Even those who cannot afford flats are inquiring for cheap 1bhk Flats in Pune in a relief of low-interest rates from banks and affordable schemes carried forward to them.
After the wonderful festive period, the real estate saw an exhausted inquiry inventory and a piled up sales record. This was due to the belief of auspicious occasion and the pocket-friendly schemes as after demonetization, real estate was one of the major sectors among many to be harmed by the cash crunch. Nevertheless, now as the cash flow in the bank is back to normal, the pace of remonetization has grown up faster than it was actually expected. Again, realty market in India has witnessed some big reforms like Benami Transactions Bill, RERA, or GST which are directly aimed at giving the sector of residential spaces transparency and more credibility.
It has been clearly seen in the country that a big investment like gold or property is considered more sentimentally than economically. Therefore the festive occasion added on to the sentiments and increased the sale to next level. Gudi Padwa, which marks a New Year in Maharashtra saw a huge increase in the sales as well as the new launched by reputed builders and developers of the state. Many people book their new homes or host housewarming parties in this occasion. Thus, Maharashtra real estate defines it as its level best on this day.
Tag Archives: Realty
Economy and Realty for the Month of April 2012
Healthy office space absorption in 2011-2012 inspite of slowdown in GDP, However 2012-13 seems bleak.
Currently, the top seven cities of India that is Mumbai, National Capital Region, Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata together occupy 389 mn sq.ft of Grade-A office space. During 2010-11, a total of 38 mn sq.ft of new space was constructed in the top seven cities and it was 37 mn sq. ft during 2011-12. Office space absorption in India during 2011-12 was merely 2% lower than 2010-11 despite GDP growth slowing down from 8.4% to 6.9% during the same period. This is in sharp contrast to the popular belief that 2011-12 was a dull year for office market in terms of absorption. Healthy absorption rate ensured a drop in vacancy level to 21% by the end of Q4 2011-12 from 27% in Q4 2009-10.
Share of Banking & IT sector falls in absorption while manufacturing sector has witnessed an increasing trend over the last two years and contributed 19% in total absorption during 2011-12, higher from 13% in 2010-11. GDP growth of service segment is estimated to grow at 8.8% during 2012-13, much higher than industry segment growth of 6%. Absorption of space during 2012-13 is expected to be considerably lower than the previous two years and this will make it all the more challenging for developers to maintain existing levels of rent.
However, the latest move by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of reducing the repo and reverse repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) each could provide the much needed impetus to the economy and help in reviewing the demand scenario for office space in the coming quarters.
Economy and Realty for the Month of March 2012.
The report highlights the revised service tax and its impact on the consumers, the deduction in TDS and the current scenario of the External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) apart from its emphasis on the Chennai Realty Market.
Following are the key takeaways of the report:
– Chennai leads the market in terms of number of units under construction accounting for 68% of the total number of units coming up in the city, followed by the western region with 27%.
– Chennai is slated to witness the infusion of around 67500 residential units in the forthcoming three years.
– During 2011, the highest price rise was observed in the central areas of the city, to the tune of around10-18%.
– According to a United Nations study, Chennai has a deficit of around 60000 housing units. About 6000 of them are in the high income group segment, 12000 in the middle income group and 18000 in the low income group.
Mirah to Grow Realty Business, Double Presence in Food and Beverages
Mirah Group, a diversified business group with interests in food and beverage (F&B), hospitality, travel and international trading, is scaling up its real estate business and consolidating it under a single entity, said a top executive. The group, which runs popular restaurant chains and food stores including Rajdhani, Mad over Donuts and Manchester United Cafe and Bar, has completed around 10 real estate projects in the past decade. But it is only now that the group is organizing and branding the business under a new entity, Edifice Properties.
“We are looking to develop large mixed-development townships in Mumbai and Pune,” said Gaurav Goenka, managing director, Mirah Group. The first project is a 300-acre township in Nagpur, which has received funding in the form of foreign direct investment from a subsidiary of Bank of Scotland. The second will be a township in Pune, and the third, of 200-300 acres in Thane, is in the land acquisition stage.
In the F&B space, Mirah Group, known for expanding through acquisitions, is in talks to buy stakes in both domestic and international brands. “International brands are coming in by the dozen and we will look at picking up stakes in brands that are scalable and have a USP (unique selling proposition),” said Goenka.
The firm intends to invest around Rs.200 crore in this space in two-three years. It will expand Rajdhani, its flagship brand, from 35 outlets to 50 in a year and Mad Over Donuts to 100 from the current 35. Cafe Mangii, which is present only in Mumbai, will travel to Bangalore and Delhi and expand from five to 15 restaurants.
Mirah also runs a chain of hotels under the brand name, Citrus. From the current lot of seven hotels, it plans to open another seven that it will itself build, own and operate. Besides running its own F&B outlets, last year, Mirah Hospitality, a part of Mirah Group, invested Rs.40 crore and acquired a 26% stake in Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which runs cafes and fine dining restaurants such as Mocha and Smoke House Deli.
Saloni Nangia, senior vice-president at retail consultancy Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, said that with the fast pace of growth in the number of people across socio-economic strata eating out and ordering in, the F&B space in India will only grow from where it is today. “While a lot of modern retail will move online, F&B, still being an experience-related business, will continue to grow,” she said.
Retail consultants said the F&B sector will continue to draw the attention of investors such as private equity and venture capital funds. Jacob Kurian, a partner at Asia-focused private equity fund New Silk Route, said the fund is exploring opportunities in the sector. New Silk Route is in talks to buy a stake in Adiga’s, a south Indian restaurant chain.
Realty Now Attracting Textile Firms
Since the land rate are rising and realty seems to be the most profitable market, many of the top textile firms are also attracted to this business and are thus generating additional revenue streams by developing or selling precious real estate.
Some of such firms are Provogue India, Century Textiles & Industries, Bombay Dyeing & Manufacturing and Alok Industries. These all aim at boosting the cash flow and reducing debts.
In the last year, the cities like Mumbai and Delhi have gone through a big hike in property prices. Across the whole world, Mumbai is rated as the most expensive office location.
The chairman of brokerage CNI Research, Kishor P Ostwal said that a lot of companies own huge land banks but the valuations in the market are given only to those who aim to develop these land banks and not just own them.
Thus, Century and Bombay Dyeing are both rated as a ‘buy’ by Ostwal since they have premium large tracts in central Mumbai.
Residential realty prices moving up
Residential real estate prices are going up. In the last three months, prices of affordable apartments have appreciated by around 10% across the country.
Anshuman Magazine, MD – real estate consultancy firm CB Richard Ellis – South Asia, said, “With improvement in the sentiment in the economy, transactions in the affordable range of residential real estate have gone up. This has made developers to increase prices by 5%-10% in the last three months”.
The developers had cut prices by around 30% in first two quarters of calendar 2009 to revive the demand of residential units, which plummeted to a low due to the global financial crisis. Magazine said the price cut led to some recovery in demand. Enthused by the partial recovery, he said, the developers, who had sold a substantial portion of their projects at hugely discounted prices, decided to increase them marginally in the next phase.
According to a IIFL report, in Mumbai, prices are up 25%-40% from the bottom in early 2009, while in NCR, the corresponding figure is 15-20 %. “Constrained supply and a revival in demand drove up prices in Mumbai, and NCR,” the report said.
In Mumbai, the prices of apartment in Metropolis appreciated by 38% since March to Rs 10,500 per square feet. Similarly, the project, Planet Godrej, has become 20% costlier to Rs 25,000 per sq ft in the last six months. In NCR also, many developers like DLF, Unitech, Jaypee Greens, Mahagun and Amrapali among others, have increased prices by around 10% from the launch prices in March-June.
In the premium segment also, there is revival in demand, said Vibhor Gupta, senior official of Jaypee Greens. However, the prices have not witnessed any escalation in the premium segment. Similar trend has been noticed in cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai.
“The current trend of price escalation can not be sustained as it will affect the demand,” said Aditi Vijayakar, ED of Cushman and Wakefiled, adding, as the demand has revived following interest rate cuts by banks, many developers have announced projects in the affordable range. This will increase the supply and will put pressure on the price rise.
At the same time, another consultant said the financial condition of the developers has not improved to a level that they can hold a project for long. They need cash flow to service the debt, which they have taken to buy lands. The source said the money from other sources like dilution of equity is still not easily available. This has forced developers to depend on the sales proceeds to service debt.
Happy days are back into realty
Realty industry is all set to be lift up this Diwali. At least 12 public offerings, a slew of new projects and the return of private equity funds that had turned away proposals due to the global slowdown last year.
‘After weathering the worst funds crisis for one and half year, the realty sector has now started seeing inflow of capital and funds,’ said Anuj Puri, the country head of leading global realty brokerage firm Jones Lang LaSalle-Meghraj.
Mr. Puri further said, ‘Sales are improving and private equity funds are coming back. With market sentiments getting bullish, prospects of fund-raising are even brighter. You can now see how every company is taking the QIP route to raise funds,’.
QIP is a tool to raise capital whereby a listed company issues equity shares, fully or partly convertible debentures or securities, instead of warrants, to institutional buyers.
After losing almost 75% of its stock valuation last year, India’s realty sector has raised about $15 billion (Rs.750 billion/Rs.75,000 crore) through routes like QIP in the past six months.
Among the developers who have started mopping up funds over the past few months are the largest player in the industry, DLF Ltd, with $780 million, Unitech with $325 million and Indiabulls Real Estate with $550 million.
Property cards to regulate realty
Property cards are the new concept to regulate realty sector in Karnataka. When the Karnataka Land Grabbers Act comes into force, it’ll bring in clearness by cleaning up land records. These had always been messed with, resulting in dubious property transactions and disputes. These cards, to be issued to property owners, will serve as authentic documents.
According to Revenue department registration of sale deeds would be replaced with registration of titles. This will be done by introducing the progressive system of property titles. The newly formed task force for eviction of encroachers on government land is also part of it.
During talks with stakeholders on irregularities in account transfer and building construction, it was felt there is no reliable system of land and property title records in Bangalore Urban. Records of rights are written casually, leading to endless disputes. The present system of registration of documents can be misused easily.
Best time for a deal in real estate
It is the best time to look around for a value buy in real estate. With lower price points in locations which were not within your wallet’s reach, buyers are scouting for good ‘value’ bargains at this time.
And with developers going big on affordable home launches, the timing may just be one of the best for buyers seeking a steal deal.
Anshuman Magazine, CMD of global real estate consultancy CBRE says that value buying is happening mostly in suburban locations as that is where the current supply is.
Raymond to enter realty
Textile company Raymond plans to move towards realty sector. The initial project would be to develop the surplus land of 15-20 acres in Thane, where its factory is located. Mr Gautam Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director, Raymond, said in a press conference that the primary focus would be in the residential segment and funding would be from internal accruals. He further said, “This proposal is in line with the strategy of the company to unlock value of the land.” Further he added that it was subject to shareholders’ approval.
Companies with land bank turning realtors
The revival of riches in the real estate sector has encouraged textile companies with huge land banks to enter into property development.
Among such companies are textiles major Bombay Dyeing and Century Textiles.
Golden Tobacco, manufacturer of the Panama and Chancellor cigarette brands, is also considering to have its real estate arm to utilize its land assets across the country.
Earlier, groups like Tata, Mahindra and Godrej also entered the realty space. The Tata group has Tata Housing and Tata Realty while Mahindra’s venture is called Mahindra Lifespace Developers. Godrej’s venture goes by the name of Godrej Properties.
Fifteen realty firms waiting to enter market
Fifteen real estate companies are waiting in the wings to tap the capital market to raise upto 6 billion dollars with the housing sector showing signs of recovery. This list includes Lodha Developers, Oberoi Constructions, Emmar MGF and Godrej Properties and many more. These firms wanted to come out with the IPO earlier, but held them back due to bearish market. The success of a real estate IPO would depend upon corporate governance, background of the companies and the right pricing among others. Start-ups and relatively unknown firms would face difficulty to raise funds from the market. Almost USD six billion private equity fund was also likely to come in the six to eight months time to the domestic real estate bazaar.
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.
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.
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.
Price correction supports realty
Market is encouraged by price correction and low interest rates after few months of slump. The improvement is visible in residential sector, especially in low to mid-end housing segment. Level of inquiries went up and transaction velocity increased marginally as compared to first quarter of this year. Most developers deferred plans for launching any new projects, the focus being on deploying the scarce resources on completing projects in hand.
HDIL’s first quarter result shows recovery
The first quarter results of real estate major HDIL indicate a improvement in the domestic realty sector. Not only volumes, but also prices are now moving northward.
Despite the fact that both sales as well as profit margins fell during the June quarter, the decline was less than expected and pace is also slackening. Revenues fell by 47% year-on-year to Rs 318.61 crore from Rs 601 crore in the same quarter previous year. With more than three-fourth of its revenue coming from low yielding land development and slum rehabilitation scheme projects, the margins have taken a major hit. Operating margin also fell from 58% to about 43%. Net profit stood at Rs 107.47 crore as against Rs 317.9 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of last year.
In this quarter, HDIL sold less than 1.8 million square feet of TDR at an average price of Rs 1,500 per square feet. It is expected to cumulatively sell close to 6-7-million square feet of TDR in financial year 2010. HDIL has managed to restructure major part of its debt liability and repayments would be due only by October 2010. On account of completion of the mall and multiplex at Kandivili, a Mumbai suburb, about Rs 21 crore worth of investments have been transferred to fixed assets from the Profit & Loss account in the current quarter. As the company follows the project completion method for revenue recognition, it is only by 2011 when the ongoing residential projects would get completed. On the airport project, phase I is expected to be complete by fiscal year 2010 and land acquisition for other parts of project is going on. Recently the company has entered into a rental-housing scheme with MMRDA. This is expected to add 30 million square feet of space to its existing 196-million square feet of land bank.
Realty revival lifts home retail
Better times are gradually returning to the home retail segment, among the categories worst affected by the slowdown. The segment, which saw a decline of 15-25% in sales, is witnessing a spate of revival, hand-in-hand with the returning stability in housing market.
Leading players in this segment like the Future Group, Godrej Interio, Welspun Retail and HomeStop are hopeful of the trend gaining further momentum, with the festive season right around the corner.
Confirming the trend, Retailers Association of India CEO Kumar Rajagopalan said, “With the housing sector slump, home sections of retailers found themselves in big trouble. But now that there are signs of a recovery in the housing market, home retail is also picking up. Both hard and soft furnishings have shown an increase in sales of anything between 10-15 percent over the past quarter. This segment had seen sales decline by 20 percent.”
Godrej & Boyce, which runs 50-odd ‘Interio’ furniture stores, has been witnessing a revival from May. Mr. Subodh Mehta, senior GM (home business), Godrej Interio said, “While some home retailers may have been downtrading by giving massive discounts, we restricted ourselves to normal promotion. Even though sales are yet to reach the 30-35 percent growth rate as in the pre-slowdown days, it is still growing at a double-digit rate”.
HomeStop, the home concept format owned by Shopper’s Stop, expects sales to grow from September-October onwards. Shopper’s Stop executive director & CEO Govind Shrikhande said, “Though we did not experience a steep decline in sales, our expectations are that sales will again reach its peak in the last quarter”.
Future Group, one of the largest players in home retail with multiple stores like Home Town, Collection-I and Furniture Bazaar, has been reporting a negative same store growth in this segment since the slowdown hit India. The group reported a 10% drop in same store sales till March, slumping further to 28% in April and May, and 34% in June. Group officials feel the fall in same store sales has bottomed out last month.