India Post
May 4, 2007
www.indiapost.com
Realty Tidbits Real Estate
42
Real estate sector set
to soar in India
Qualitative response to India Real Estate Expo
SRIREKHA N. CHAKRAVARTY
India Post News Service
NEW YORK: Indian realty sec-
tor will grow from $12 billion in
2005 to $90 billion by 2015, accord-
ing to a Merrill Lynch forecast.
The figures were revealed as part
of a presentation on India’s real
estate sector titled, “Latest Trends
in Real Estate in India”, at the Con-
sulate of India in New York re-
cently in collaboration with the
Citibank Mortgage Group and
Axion Estates. More than a 100
interested people attended the pre-
sentation.
With 35 major foreign funds
working in India and at least 20
more expected to enter the sector
in the first half of 2007 alone, and
major global funds like Carlyle,
Blackstone, Morgan Stanley,
Trikona and Warburg Pincus al-
ready in India, the real estate sec-
tor in the country is one of the
prominent sectors of the rapidly
growing Indian economy, it was
noted by Consul General Neelam
Deo.
Giving a background on the
significant strides made by the
Indian economy since the early
‘90s, Alok Banerjee, Chief Operat-
ing Officer of Axiom Estates re-
counted the accumulated and in-
creasing demand for goods and
services in the economy. With spe-
cific reference to the real estate
sector, he noted that the rising in-
come levels of middle class Indi-
ans, availability of affordable fi-
nancing packages, large invest-
ments sponsored by government
as well as the private sector in the
infrastructure areas had led to a
boom in the construction of office
space as well as living accommo-
dation.
Nearly 80 percent of the real
estate market in India is in the resi-
dential apartments sector, said
Banerjee, adding that currently,
there is a shortfall of 20 million
dwelling units and future require-
ments are projected at over 5 mil-
lion units per year. Banerjee was
of the view that with a very low
mortgage/GDP ratio of 5 percent
in comparison to other comparable
markets and a bull