Latest Property News on 'Non Resident Indian (NRI)'

Indian ‘Golf Cities’ Fuel Real Estate Boom

Townships with designer interiors and world-class architecture are passé. Developers are now turning to golf to attract non-resident Indians and high net worth individuals in the premium housing segment.

Residential dwellings built around a golf course are the latest buzzword in the super-premium housing segment of the Indian realty industry, estimated at $15 billion and growing at 35 per cent annually. Read More »

Double Whammy for High-End Luxury Realty Market

THE high-end luxury real estate market is facing a double whammy. The demand from domestic buyers has already dried down and now even non-resident Indians (NRIs), who constituted a significant market for luxury real estate developers, are developing cold feet. “With the US property market witnessing a correction due to subprime crisis, the NRIs are expecting the same to happen in India and are holding back on their purchases,” says Delhi based real estate firm Omaxe CMD Rohtas Goel, who recently launched a luxury project in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Three-four years ago, there were only a few big developers into the game of building luxury homes. But the higher margin in the business prompted many others to join.“The developers entered the luxury segment without a proper assessment of the market. Now they are faced with a major supply-demand mismatch. In Punjab, Delhi NCR and Mumbai suburbs, the supply far outstrips demand,” says real estate consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj India chairman Anuj Puri, adding that the exit of speculators and investors has impacted these markets, where the supply exceeds demand by 25-35%. Read More »

Indian Real Estate targeting Canadian NRIs

Real estate developers and agents in India are now offering more solution to market properties to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) and international real estate investors. Their focus now is geared to target the burgeoning and lucrative market of prospective Canadian buyers.

The latest report by ‘Statistics Canada’ says that South Asians have now surpassed the Chinese as the largest visible minority group in the Greater Toronto Area. “The 2006 Census enumerated an estimated 1,262,900 individuals who identified themselves as South Asian, a growth rate of 37.7 percent from 917,100 individuals in 2001. For the first time, the South Asian community has outnumbered the vast Chinese population in the Greater Toronto area,” says the report. Pair this with the World Bank’s new report: `Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008′: NRIs (primarily in North America) sent over $27 billion in foreign remittance to India in 2007, making India the highest recipient of remittances in the world ($27 billion = INR 108,000 crores). A significant portion of this amount went into Indian real estate. Indian realty is growing at a whopping 30 percent with the $15 billion market expected to reach $90 billion within the next 8 years. Huge demand and access to capital have been the key drivers for propelling the Indian real estate market into overdrive as more and more money is pouring in. Read More »

Global Indian Home Seekers turn towards Dubai, Malaysia

More and more Indians are investing in properties abroad, a trend that has led to huge incentives being thrown their way, by way of free plane tickets for a reccee, holiday packages or even a private jet on a penthouse! And the preferred markets for Indians are Dubai, Singapore, Malaysia, US and UK.

The latter two locations have been preferred by end users or NRIs who live and buy locally in these countries. Read More »

New Age ‘Golf Cities’ to Attract NRIs, HNIs

Townships with designer interiors and world-class architecture are passé. Developers are now turning to golf to attract non-resident Indians (NRIs) and high net worth individuals (HNIs) in the premium housing segment.

Residential dwellings built around a golf course are the latest buzzword in the super-premium housing segment of the Indian realty industry, estimated at $15 billion and growing at 35 percent annually. Read More »

Zoom Developers tie up with global Realty Firm

Mumbai-based Rs 830 crore real estate developer Zoom Developers has signed a memorandum of understanding with Yoo Holdings, a $10 billion global property development company, to form a special purpose vehicle to execute medium and large-scale real estate projects on a national as well as international level.

Yoo Holdings is a design-focused property development firm founded by international design guru Philippe Starck and property developer John Hitchcox based out of Canada, USA and Israel. Read More »

Global attention turns toward Indian Real Estate Market

Cushman & Wakefield, one of the world’s largest property consultancy firms, said the real estate downturn in the US could continue and that India, China and the Middle-East will become even more attractive as these markets offer huge opportunities for investment.

The US-based property consultant also said that more financial institutions in the US and Europe are likely to face financial problems in the coming weeks. Read More »

Luxury Market for NRIS and HNIS, a New Opportunity for Real Estate Developers

As home sales continue to dip, real estate developers are tapping the luxury home segment by targeting non-resident Indians and high net worth individuals keen on buying that exclusive villa in India. The move also seems to be backed by pure market play as demand in the luxury home segment is growing sharply, bucking the trend seen in other areas of the industry where exposure to high-risk borrowers has tightened loan flow from banks.

Real estate players whom ET spoke to said these ‘nouveau riche’ were now moving up the chain and extending their possessions to luxury homes with ultra sophisticated amenities like personal swimming pools, jogging tracks, health clubs and personal gardens. Read More »

Spirituality drives India’s Realty Industry

Spirituality, one can say has emerged as a major factor driving India’s $15 billion realty industry that is growing at 35 per cent per annum.

Religious tourism is pushing the realty industry’s growth in destinations like Vrindavan, Mathura, Haridwar, Ajmer, Amritsar, Tirupati and Nasik - cities on the fast track and emerging hot spots for real estate developers.

“Religious towns have good growth prospects. They are witnessing more than 45 per cent annual rise in property prices against the average 25-35 per cent in Tier II cities,” says Vipin Agarwal, executive director, Omaxe Developers. Read More »

Indian Real Estate Boom Lures Foreign Investors

The real estate market in India is worth about $12 billion and is growing at about 30 percent a year, Ernst & Young said in a report last month commissioned by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Rising incomes, easy financing and population growth are driving demand for housing and luring overseas investors.

India will have at least 50 property-related initial public offerings in the next year as the real estate industry booms, according to Anish Jhaveri, the head of equity sales at HSBC Holdings in India. “With the opening of the real estate sector, there’s a lot of need for funds,” Jhaveri said in a recent interview in Hong Kong. “The government has been giving very proactive support to the whole sector.” Read More »