Review and Future Outlook for Indian Real Estate 2014 and 2015 – Mr. Neeraj Gulati, MD – Assotech Realty Pvt Ltd

2014 had been a year of full of surprises starting with new government at the center in considering of REIT funding by SEBI as a leeway for developers to tackle with the fund crunch of late has been a bait breath for the developer community. Again from the home buyer’s point of view the sector has not been able to provide fruitful proposition due to high home loan interest and escalating property price which has basically breached the limitation for the affordable housing segment, thereby keeping them at bay as fence sitters waiting for correction to happen.

Given the fact the real estate has progressed at a gradual pace annually, contributing nearly 6.3 % to the nations GDP as compared to the other key sectors which has witnessed a poor performance in terms of growth and contribution to economy. The luxury segment has witnessed a muted growth in contrary to the other segments. Realty sector couldn’t remain untouched by this unswerving wave of pessimism. The office space segment has been muted which had witnessed the ripple effect of retrograded economic performance. In a striking contrast to previous years, festive season in 2014 noticed a lull across the asset classes. Regardless of the market sentiments the residential property prices illustrated upward swing. This further led to a decline in absorption compared to the same period last year. Cities which exhibited a sharp upsurge in the supply observed higher decline rate in the absorption. Conversely, affordable locations and a few evolving markets in and around suburbs proved trade pundits wrong. The top emerging destinations of 2014 were Sohna and Dwarka expressway in Gurgaon.

Year 2015 usher a new set of aspirations and hopes which holds a high valued significance for the housing sector of the country. As a proven sector which has always been in the continual growth process, the stumble blocks needed to be countered in the form of growing inflation, global capital inflow and budget reforms.

However with rapid urbanization at unprecedented scale, change in lifestyle form clubbed by globalization leading to an unparallel demand for housing units in the urban set up which would beef up the sales of housing units across the residential segments in real estate. The segment which we expect to be the under dogs is the mid housing segment high income group segment especially in the NCR and Tier II & III cities. Businesses are likely to exhibit greater confidence in terms of expansion plans. This would result in increased office space absorption. Development of commercial realty is relative to the performance of Retail sector which is expected to gain momentum in the second half of 2015. I n the NCR Dwarka Expressway, Sohna and Noida Expressway are fast emerging as an attractive destination for stand-alone developments, group housing and commercial complexes. And the areas that are likely to report significant growth going forward are Rewari and Dharuhera in the lines of the SMART cities proposed by the NDA government.