October 24, 2008
What you can’t measure, you can’t predict. I feel this adage correctly captures one of the most significant constraints in the Indian real estate markets, namely availability of accurate data. Because of the lack of data regarding price movement across markets in India, it is difficult to analyse and predict fair price values for residential housing. The National Housing Board (NHB) has taken on the task of creating and monitoring an index for residential prices across the country. However, the index is not freely available and does not yet have sufficient data for it to be used as a tool for meaningful analysis. In the absence of an existing housing index, I will lean on the stock market index (S&P CNX Nifty 500) to make an assessment of the residential real estate price movement over the last few years. More »
September 24, 2008
To offset the slowdown in sales, many developers have lately introduced no EMI or deferred EMI offers. The thought of not having to pay interest, especially in this high interest rate environment, is certainly tempting. However, despite such offers, only some of these projects are attractive investment options. In this blog post, I will describe the steps you need to go through, as an investor, to analyse the attractiveness of such offers. More »
September 9, 2008
In deteriorating markets, it is easy to fall prey to extreme pessimism. Amidst falling sales volumes and stagnant prices, might some of us have overlooked a strong buy trigger in the Delhi and Gurgaon residential markets? Look closely and you will notice that over the past 12 months, rental yields have been expanding quickly in Delhi and Gurgaon is catching up fast. In this post, I will attempt to address the following three topics:
- What influences rental yields?
- Rental yields even across the metros are low. Why is that?
- Is rental yield a lagging indicator to appreciating capital values?
More »
July 31, 2008
Smaller apartments-don’t confuse lower TCO with lower prices
Better late than never! That’s how I would like to sum up this all important trend that finally appears to be taking root in Indian RE. Over the last few years (2003-2007), there has been significant supply of larger than average (>2000 sq ft) apartments across all the major metros and the adjoining suburbs. Whilst this supply was quickly lapped up over the first few years, there appears to be a supply overhang of large apartments because of an unaffordable Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). TCO for an apartment may be arrived at by multiplying size of apartment with price psf of apartment. The TCO needs to come down if developers want to address the needs of a larger section of the market. More »
July 21, 2008
This is the last in a series of three posts I started writing three weeks ago. In this post, I will evaluate buying an apartment through the resale market including its advantages and disadvantages.
For a complete understanding of which option is most suitable to your circumstances, I recommend you read the preceding two posts regarding buying in a soft launch and a hard launch. More »
July 14, 2008
In this post, I will attempt to weigh the pros and cons of buying an apartment in a hard launch. This is a continuation of my post of 7th July,08 in which I had evaluated the pros and cons of buying in a soft launch. More »
July 8, 2008
In the next three posts on this blog, I will attempt to weigh the pros and cons of the three buying categories or options available to you as an investor, namely, soft launch, hard launch and resale. In this post, I will attempt to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of soft launch. More »
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Mr. Adi Godrej of 
Location : Fatehabad. 40 kms from Hisar on NH-10
