Realty News Roundup: Survey Says New Home Purchase Sentiment Strongest In 4 Yrs; DMG Information Invests Rs 32 Cr In Real Estate Data Firm
Realty News Roundup is PropGuide's selection of top stories from the real estate sector.
Top News
A survey conducted by ZyFin Research has found that consumer sentiment about buying a new home is currently the strongest in four years. According to the research titled 'New Home Purchase Sentiment Index', the declining borrowing costs, improving employment outlook and higher availability of affordable home projects are encouraging prospective home buyers to purchase a new home in 2015.
Office space demand in Bengaluru has ranked highest in Asia-Pacific region. According to a real estate survey, robust demand for office and commercial space from the booming IT sector has placed Bengaluru on the top among Asia-Pacific cities.
Off the front page
A number of investment reports have appeared in today's news. DMG Information Asia Pacific, which is a part of British media firm Daily Mail & General Trust, has invested $5 million (around Rs 32 crore) in Mumbai-based residential real estate data and analytics firm Liases Foras. A report in Financial Express says Prestige Estates is going to buy back Exora biz park. It says the Bangalore-based real estate company will have to raise funds to buy out its partner, private equity fund Red Fort Capital, in the Exora Business Park project.
In yet another development, Real estate developer Puravankara Projects has sold an 18 acre land parcel off Kanakpura Road in Bengaluru for Rs 140 crore to Godrej Properties and Dutch pension services provider APG. In another report, Barwa Real Estate, one of Qatar's largest listed real estate companies, announced a five-year business plan on Monday, which targets a return on equity of no less than 15 percent by the end of 2020.
Bengaluru-based real estate firm Sobha Ltd has achieved a sales of Rs 503.9 crore for the first quarter of the current fiscal ended June 30, up by 4.5% over the Rs 482.2 crore it clocked in the same period last year.
Opinion
Harsh Roongta, the Director of Apna Paisa tells you in this piece how to go about buying property from bank auctions. Must read.
Vinod Behl, Editor of real estate monthly Realty Plus, opines in this piece that reforms and technology hold key to urban revamp. The three-pronged initiative of the NDA government through big ticket urban-focused investment schemes of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) , Smart Cities Mission and Home for All with central funding of Rs.4 lakh crore, hold the promise of providing the much- needed fillip to the real estate sector and raise the living standard of people by creating world class cities and spaces, he says. Read here.