Industry speak

Anshul Jain, Managing Director and Country Head, Cushman & Wakefield India, “ The Indian real estate saw interesting times with 2018 slated to record the best ever showing for the office sector, with gross leasing activity expected close to 50 mn sq ft. This has been supported by robust space take-up by IT-BPM sector with global captive centres clocking impressive numbers as well, and the co-working revolution consolidating its gains with a strong showing during the year. Retail space take-up is on track to clock a five-year high pointing to a stellar year with physical retail in the pink of health backed by robust take-up in quality retail supply. Key cities that lead the retail deals are Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

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Shishir Baijal, Chairman and MD, Knight Frank India, “2018 will be recorded as a year marked by consistent volatility – on account of both international and domestic events. Whilst we witnessed a healthy growth in office, industrial and retail sectors, we recorded rising interest in niche-segments such as co-working, co-living and student housing. Considering sustained policy focus on construction of crucial national highways and industrial corridors, we saw continued strength in logistics and warehousing with growing interest from occupiers and overseas investor community alike.  The residential sector, however, remained subdued”.

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Parveen Jain, Vice Chairman,  NAREDCO & CMD Tulip Infratech, “The year 2018 can certainly be considered as better for real estate as compared to the past two years. The year saw the opening of new transport corridors, expressways, flyovers, roads and bridges and an ever-expanding Metro network in NCR-Delhi, and Gurugram reaching surrounding areas and converting them into satellite towns. With the remote areas becoming easily accessible, leading to the development of supporting infrastructure, in 2018 the emphasis has been on developing more commercial and office spaces besides housing and this trend shall continue in the next year 2019”.

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Ankur Dhawan, Chief Investment Officer- PropTiger.com, “2018 will be remembered as the year when residential real estate came out of bottom of its sales cycle. Overall sales increased by 25 per cent in 2018 over 2017 whereas launches dropped by 22 per cent. Inventory overhang came down to five-year low of 29 months.”

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Prateek Mittal, Executive Director, SUSHMA Group, “There has been sustained growth in real estate in Tri-city that has helped developers easily sail through the otherwise sluggish realty market across the country. Subsidies under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna and RERA have played a huge role in restoring faith in the real estate sector. Improvement in housing sales in Tri City in CY 18 has shown seriousness of the realty players on the completion of projects since the implementation of RERA. Low levels of new launches in the past 4-5 years, and a constant rise in sale numbers in the last 18-20 months has attracted a lot of buyers and investors.”

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Manoj Gaur, MD, Gaurs Group and Vice President, CREDAI National, “2018 was a favourable year for the entire real estate sector. Demand was seen in all the categories --be it newly launched, under- construction or ready-to-move-in homes. As per the market reports Greater Noida saw healthy sales. We are expecting 2019 to be another great year for Indian real estate sector.”

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Gaurav Gupta- General Secretary CREDAI Ghaziabad and Director SG Estates, “Realty sector which otherwise was reeling under high pressure of demand and supply, where supply had become way higher than the existing demand until FY 17-18. With FY 18-19, realty developers had a major sign of relief when demand came back to the market, once again strengthening the fact that the demand for realty in India can never go down. With fresh supply very limited and ready-to-move-in inventory almost finished, prices will start increasing very soon. This is the best time for the buyer to purchase the property.” 

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Sanyam Dudeja, Director, Jubilee Group, “Steady growth was witnessed in terms of market traction this year. Commercial real estate retained its status as the most buoyant sector across major cities, including tricity. Demand for Grade A Office spaces was high. This prompted commercial property developers to focus more on this segment to fulfil demand from occupiers across IT/ITES/BFSI, manufacturing and co-working spaces.  Office real estate emerged as a strong investment option for producing high returns”. 

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Harinder Singh, Chairman at Realistic Realtors , “The first two quarters of the year started with no big incentives from government in the budget to boost demand and bailout the industry from prolonged slowdown. Challenges became bigger for the on-going projects and beyond repair in case of some large development projects due to liquidity obstruction, adding to the pain was occurrence of NBFC crisis that completely dried the last open tap and hope of faster completion for many on-going projects. But the commercial real estate market continued to show positive movement and displayed higher volume of leasing in all verticals,  be it Office Space, Retail, Logistics & Warehousing. A major chunk of institutional capital and investment is directed towards commercial space and the overall sector is performing exceptionally well. “

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In the first half of 2018 residential real estate recorded a 25 per cent annual increase in sales in the metro. Concurrently, commercial realty has also been picking up. In the first half of 2018, leasing activities of corporate rose 54 per cent y-o-y. As per recent reports, office absorption in 2020 is expected to exceed 2011’s historic high of 37 million sq. ft. While the new growth drivers would be affordable housing, logistics and warehousing, the expectations are that student housing will emerge as a Rs2,400 crore market by 2020.”  

--Anil Saraf, CMD, ASF Group

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Rattan Hawelia, Founder & Chairman, Hawelia Group, “2018 was a year of struggle for private developers due to poor fiscal management and delayed projects. Implication of RERA & then GST system also affected the sector as compliance to all the rules was a challenge to most of the developers. Ready-to-move-in or near completion flats were in demand by the end users and commercial office market showed good growth. The demand of affordable housing is more than the supply and affordable housing will definitely play a key role in 2019. All policy reforms will significantly impact the revival & growth of the market in 2019”.