Residential and commercial property is red hot. Not only the metros, but also the mini metros of Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Indore, Nagpur, Mangalore is seeing a lot of construction activity. The major metros have seen proliferation of retail and office spaces. There are close to 370 malls as of today which would become 600 by end of 2010. Close to 100 mn square feet of retail space is expected to exist by 2010. On the commercial office space, there is increased demand for space in tier 2 and tier 3 cities from IT and ITES companies to arbitrage from lower wages and property prices. To everybody's notice the residential prices also have been going up doubling in some suburban places. Real estate market in India is clearly at an inflexion point. While there are private equity players already raking moolah from the Indian realty market through indirect participation, real estate mutual funds would soon make the same available for retail investors at a smaller cost.
There are various if and buts though that have time and again rankled the ET readers ever since the real estate market has got its attention.
As a run up to the budget, ET is organising a series of forums with the aim of empowering all our readers and Corporate India.
This forum is on Real estate titled "Real estate - The Road ahead". This is a part of ET's endeavor to capture industry trends through close engagement with vertical leaders. The past few years have seen several major developments in the Indian real estate industry. There has been an exponential growth in home finance, which has enabled many more Indians to become home-owners. Commercial property development has also soared due to growth in retail, IT & BPO industry.
From the industry side, the leading developers like Unitech, Hiranandani, Parsvnath, Sobha, DLF etc. are acquiring a pan-India presence. Many of these have also tapped the capital markets in the recent past and are now multi-billion dollar m-cap companies. This has involved a whole new class of stakeholders in the business - the investors.
With this background, what is needed from the policy front to take the real estate sector ahead?
Affordable housing in cities - always a problem.
Common set of regulations across the country - to allow the industry to grow beyond one city
Urban Infrastructure - how will it be funded
Funding for the sector - Real Estate Investment Trusts, public offerings
Safeguards for investors - critical if the sector is to become respectable and tap the markets again
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