Hyderabad’s unsold residential stock at 5-year low

With steady absorption coupled with improving demand, Hyderabad's unsold residential inventory has come down to their lowest point since 2010, bringing some cheer to the lacklustre market, said a report by property consultant Knight Frank. 

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There was absorption of 14,093 units in 2015 as against the 11,197 launched as new launches dropped by 14 percent in 2015, continuing the trend from 2014. 

"The annual trend in launches shows a clear decline. However, the half yearly trend over the last three periods shows supply numbers stabilising gradually," said Vasudevan Iyer, Branch Director, Knight Frank, Hyderabad. 

The report also hinted towards a recovery of 5% in absorption year-on-year during the first half of 2016. According to city developers, price correction is inevitable as Hyderabad property prices are already rock bottom and hence there will be a price appreciation. Residential units witnessed a growth of 3.1 percent year on year during the second half of 2015. 

On the other hand, the office market, despite a minor dip in absorption, posted robust numbers indicating an upward trend in office space absorption. In 2015, there was absorption of 4.6 million square feet as against 4.7 million sqft a year ago. 

Office space absorption is likely to push up by 23% year-on-year in the first half of 2016, while an approximate 1.9 million sqft space is expected to come up, the report said. 

Robust absorption coupled with falling supplies pushed vacancy levels to 14.4 percent at the end of 2015 from 17.7 percent in 2013. Interestingly, the second half of 2015 experienced the highest absorption levels of any half-yearly period in history on the back of big-ticket transactions by Qualcomm, Salesforce, Unitedhealth Group and J.P. Morgan. 

Simultaneously, rentals have been increasing steadily since 2012 and picked up momentum after the second half of 2014, post the resolution of Telangana issue. Also, severe shortage of good quality office space in prime areas has turned the market in favour of landlords, who are asking for higher rents from tenants with each passing quarter. The rentals are expected to rise by 7 percent in the first half of 2016. 

SOurce - ET 

Housing sale down 4% in eight cities in 2015

Housing sales fell by 4 percent to 2,63,720 units last year, lowest since 2010, in the eight major cities of the country on account of demand slowdown in the real estate market despite interest rate cut by the RBI.

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The National Capital Region (NCR) continued to be the worst performing market in India with sales and launches at six year low, property consultant Knight Frank said in its report released on January 29.

Launches of new homes fell by 21 percent in 2015 at 2,44,944 units in the primary market of eight major cities - NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

The unsold inventories have declined marginally to 6.91 lakh units from nearly 7.15 lakh units in 2014. Developers would take more than 2.5 years to exhaust this unsold stock.

Commenting on the report, Knight Frank India CMD Shishir Baijal said: "2015 for Indian real estate had both the good and bad news. While the office market grew from strength to strength, residential did not perform as expected."

Residential segment continued to face slowdown with launches at a five year low, despite the festive season.

"Sales in 2015 were lower than 2014 levels. Despite the 125 bps rate cut by RBI, demand did not see an uptake. Our outlook for 2016 remains muted. To further revive the demand, it is important to transmit the benefits of the rate cuts to consumers," Baijal said.

In the Delhi-NCR market, housing sales fell marginally to 48,503 units in 2015 from 48,630 units in the previous year.

However, launches of new homes fell by 20 percent to 63,458 units in NCR. The unsold inventory in NCR stands at 2.06 lakh units at the end of 2015.

On housing prices, Knight Frank India National Director (Residential Agency) Mudassir Zaidi said the prices grew by an average 3 percent last year. However, he said the rate of growth has come down from 9 percent to 3 percent in the last 36 months.

In contrast to the housing segment, Knight Frank India's Executive Director (North and Capital Markets) Rajeev Bairathi said the office space absorption stood at 40.4 million sq ft, highest since 2012, in six cities - Mumbai, NCR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.

Delhi-NCR witnessed absorption of 7.4 million sq ft of office space last year.

"Supply of quality office space is now a concern with vacancy levels at an eight year low. Rentals have firmed up as a result," he added.

Among sectors driving growth, IT/ITeS continues to lead with start-ups. "This year, however, we saw e-commerce and start-ups contribute to the office space uptake in a major way. Going forward, we have to wait to see if this trend continues," Bairathi said.

Source - ET

Duty-free shops at airports in non-metro cities see uptick in business

MUMBAI: International flyers from smaller Indian cities are thronging duty free shops at airports in large numbers, shopping for single malts and premium perfumes.

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"Nowadays, customers from non-metro cities have become very well informed, and there has been a rise in the number of flyers from such cities over the past two years. A growth in their disposable income fuels their buying behaviour. All these have helped us in boosting sales in non-metro cities such as Lucknow, Amritsar, Jaipur, Mangalore, etc," said Anirban Dutta Chowdhury, CEO, India at Flemingo International, which operates duty free shops at 11 cities in India, including Kolkata, Chennai, Trivandrum, Calicut, Trichy, Goa and Ahmedabad, apart from the ones mentioned earlier.

Flemingo currently gets 55 per cent of its India business from Kolkata and Chennai while the rest comes from non-metro cities.

The latter chunk has "grown substantially" over the past few years and will continue to grow, said Chowdhury without elaborating.

The airports are operated by state-run Airports Authority of India. Its chairman RK Srivastava said there has been an increase in demand for duty free in non-metro airports.

AAI over the next seven years will be investing close to $12 billion for construction of new regional airports and expansion of existing ones. More than ten of these will have bigger duty free areas.

"We are expanding our retail space. We will have stores at both arrival & departure terminals at all the locations where we operate. Departure stores at some locations such as Amritsar and Calicut were closed. Now we are in the process of reopening and making new stores there," said Chowdhury.

More Indian travellers are buying at duty-free stores in local airports instead of overseas, attracted by discounts and a growing range of spirits and perfumes stocked by operators in the country.

Source - TOI 

Not all is lost for state in smart city list

Lucknow

After a debacle in the top 20 Smart Cities list released by the Centre on January 28, Lucknow Municipal Corporation seems to have not lost all and hopes for Lucknow to be soon added in the list. The state capital fell short of few numbers and achieved 29th rank in the survey.

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The Union Ministry of Urban Development has announced to soon release a list of 10 more cities to be taken up from states which could not find a single rank in top 20. The list is expected to come out by February end and Lucknow stands a good chance to appear.

Mayor Dinesh Sharma said, "Lucknow would certainly appear in top 30. We have heard that a special round of competition would be held among states which could not make it to top 20 and 10 top cities will be selected among them. We are keeping fingers crossed for Lucknow."

Notably, Agra too is very close by at 31st rank, followed by Kanpur and Aligarh from UP in decreasing order of scores. Varanasi has been among worse performers in the ranking.

Source - TOI 

Rupee firms up 26 paise against dollar in early trade

MUMBAI: The rupee recovered 26 paise to 67.97 against the US dollar in early trade on Friday at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market on fresh selling of the American currency by exporters.

Besides, dollar's weakness against other currencies overseas and a rebound in domestic equity market in early hours supported the rupee, forex dealers said.

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The local unit had lost 18 paise to close at a fresh 29-month low of 68.23 in yesterday's trade on persistent dollar demand from banks and importers despite a lower greenback overseas after the US Fed kept interest rates unchanged.

The benchmark BSE sensex recovered 153.99 points, or 0.62 per cent, to 24,623.56 in early trade today.

Source - TOI 

Sensex soars 154 points as Feb F&O series takes off in style

MUMBAI: The benchmark BSE Sensex rallied about 154 points to 24,623.56 in early session on Friday on fresh buying push from investors as the February derivatives series was off to a solid start amid positive Asian cues.

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The 30-share Sensex, which lost 22.82 points in the previous choppy session, recouped 153.99 points, or 0.62 per cent, at 24,623.56.

Except banking, all sectoral indices of BSE led by consumer durables, metal and oil and gas were in the positive zone, rising by up to 1.85 per cent.

The NSE Nifty jumped 54.35 points, or 0.73 per cent, to 7,479.
Brokers said build-up of bets following the beginning of the February futures and options (F&O) series led to the rebound.

A firming trend at other Asian markets led by Japan after the Bank of Japan surprised markets by announcing a negative interest rate policy buoyed sentiment here too, they said.However, shares of ICICI Bank and Maruti Suzuki fell 3.86 per cent 1.72 per cent, respectively, dragged down by muted third quarter earnings announced after trading hours on Thursday.

Japan's Nikkei climbed 3.21 per cent, Shanghai Composite rose 2 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 2.05 per cent in early trade.

The US markets ended 0.79 per cent higher in yesterday's trade on higher oil prices and strong corporate earnings.

Source - TOI 

Indians Third Biggest Investor in US Property Market: Brokerage

New Delhi: Indians are the third biggest international investor community in the US realty market, global brokerage Sotheby's International Realty said.

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Indians had invested around $8 billion last year in US property market, the US-based brokerage said.
Canadians and Chinese buyers topped the list of foreign nationals in terms of investment in US property market.

"I think and I believe Indians who live in the US are one of the largest group of millionaires in the America... they are already there and therefore they are investing in real estate," Sotheby's International Realty president and CEO Philip A White told Press Trust of India.

Sotheby's International Realty in August 2014 had signed an agreement with Indian firm RealPro Infra Pvt Ltd and established its Indian arm under the name North India Sotheby's International Realty, which caters to the luxury real estate demands of resident and global Indians.

Sharing the details of Indians' investment in the US, North India Sotheby's International Realty founder and president Ashwin Chadha said, "After Canadians and Chinese, Indians are third largest international community in US in terms of real estate investment and had invested around $8 billion last year."

Talking about the Indian market for the global brokerage firm, White said they are optimistic about Indian luxury real estate market and have huge expectations. India as a country has huge potential to be the top nation in terms of business for us and it may take few years to get there, he added.

"Indians searching property globally, I think we all know Indians put big premium on real estate as a tangible asset to protect from inflation or number of things. So I think they keep on looking at the opportunities," Mr White added.

Further elaborating about the brokerage firm's domestic operations so far, North India Sotheby's International Realty founder and CEO Amit Goyal said they have already tied up with some established players in the sector including Tata Housing, Sobha and Max Group's Antara Housing.

According to US-based National Association of Realtors data, Indians had spent $5.8 billion in fiscal 2014 to purchase real estate in that country. China topped the list of foreign nationals with $22 billion in realty for the one year period ended March 2014.

Source - NDTV