Delhi is best bet for realty developers, investors: Report

Delhi is best bet for realty developers, investors: Report
The Hindu Business Line, November 13, 2009, Page 17

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A FICCI-Ernst & Young scorecard of top 30 cities in 2008, said improved air quality, and reduced slum population in Delhi also helped improving the quality of life.

Mumbai ranked a close second and scored better on the business environment index though its pace of infrastructure development was slower.
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Our Bureau, Mumbai

Delhi continues to be the preferred choice of developers and investors for real estate with fast-paced improvements in physical infrastructure, emerging flyovers, underpasses, pedestrian walkways, high-capacity buses, hotels and townships being a key influencing factor.

A FICCI- Ernst & Young scorecard of top 30 cities in 2008, said improved air quality, and reduced slum population in Delhi also helped improving the quality of life. The growth of Gurgaon and Noida as preferred destination for office space for some leading global companies contributed to the business environment index.

Mumbai ranked a close second and scored better on the business environment index though its pace of infrastructure development was slower.

The report indicates that a functional metro railway, modernisation of the international airport, road widening projects and dedicated efforts to make the ring roads signal free had gone down well with the respondents.

Compared with the 2007 report, cities ranked between 11 and 20 have seen a shuffle of sorts. Goa is a notable entry into the top 20. Vishakhapatnam, Kochi, Coimbatore, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati and Madurai moved up in the order, while Vadodara, Bhopal, Rajkot and Lucknow dropped lower.

The report, comprising the rankings and factors influencing the growth of the 30 cities, key trends and tax and regulatory climate, and the developer-investor survey was released at a FICCI real estate summit here on Thursday.

Mr Ganesh Raj, Partner and National Leader, Real Estate Practice, Ernst & Young, said “This year’s report among others covers key trends and tax and regulatory climate across six key geographies, city rankings and developer-investor survey. The real estate sector seems to be one of the worst hit sectors across all geographies in the economic slowdown.”

Some key findings of the survey indicated that the market seemed to have recovered faster than what many expected. The sentiment on the sector was optimistic with 77 per cent of the respondents believing that the pain was short-lived this time. However, many respondents warned that the quick recovery, frantic buying and new launches could once again cause a real estate bubble and advised cautious planning.

Delhi and Mumbai saw high-end residential continuing to be relatively strong compared with the rest of the country, though sales had considerably slowed down. Eighty per cent of the investors were in favour of funding the residential segment. Markets across most regions are primarily driven by end-users. In Mumbai, the high-end residential segment in particular is slowly experiencing short-term investors creeping in, the report said.