Real estate investments may grow by 10% this year: study

16 Sep 2022 CW Team

About 700 acres of land across eight cities have been acquired for over $1.1 billion during January-June to develop housing, office, retail, logistics and data centre projects, according to a CII-CBRE report.

The Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and property consultant CBRE India this week released the report ‘Indian realty outlook - demystifying future growth opportunities’ at a real estate conference.

"We are quite optimistic about the real estate sector. But we need to be cautious considering global factors," said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & Chief Executive, India, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa, CBRE.

Magazine also highlighted that investments in real estate could grow by 10% this year to reach near the 2019 peak of over $6 billion.

He said all segments of real estate in the 2022 calendar year will perform better than last year, because of higher demand for apartments as well as commercial, data centre and warehousing spaces.

However, Magazine said there is a need for caution in view of rising interest rates, higher commodity prices and possible recession in the US and European economies.

He also pointed out that land prices have risen slightly in many pockets and cautioned that development prices could be impacted if rates rise sharply.

The consultant said that developers are mainly buying land for development of housing projects in view of the strong upcycle that the residential segment is currently witnessing. Institutional players have also been acquiring land for development of commercial and data centres.

In the first half of 2022, investments in real estate grew by 4% year-on-year to $3.4 billion.

Magazine said more Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) would get listed on the stock exchanges to monetise rent-yielding office, retail and warehousing assets.