Chinese eye Indian real estate

Chinese developers are now eyeing the Indian real estate market for long-term investment and they are keen to explore strategic partnership and enter into joint venture with developers from India. They are initially interested to engage in residential projects in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.

Shobhit Agarwal, international director, JLL India, international property consultant, said, “There is likely to be an inflow of at least Rs 26,000 crore in investments from China into the Indian real estate market over the next three years. This can solve one of the more pressing issues for Indian developers, which is lack of long-term funds. If the government works in the right direction and delivers on its promises, there is no reason why this trend will not continue and grow in the future.”

He further added, “Apart from China, even Japanese private equity investors are looking at entering the Indian real estate space. These investors are generally ‘patient money’ and if invested, will stay invested long-term.”

Dedicated team members of JLL India are conducting meetings with Indian developers explaining them why they should have ties joint venture projects with JLL’s Chinese developers clients.

Ashish Shah, chief operating officer (COO), Radius Developers, said, “JLL India’s team has approached us with the proposal of their Chinese clients interested in having joint venture residential projects in Mumbai. Our focus will be to have strategic partnership with the Chinese counterparts, where they will give us inputs on expertise planning. “Taking expertise help from Chinese developers is very helpful because they have already proved themselves in China and when it comes to Mumbai, there is no land available and the only way to expand is building tall towers by redeveloping old structures with the help of Chinese expertise.”

This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had voiced for Chinese investors develop trade relations to strengthen relationship between New Delhi and Beijing. India and China had signed 24 deals worth over $10 billion during Mr Modi’s visit to China.

According to Mr Agarwal, after Mr Modi became Prime Minister, the outlook towards India has turned positively. Funds across the world are looking more confidently at investing in India.

However, real estate experts from the city feel that if Chinese developers invest in the city there are many medium-sized developers who will get financial assistance and support because for any developer, finance will always be a matter of concern.

The market in your city Mumbai: Residential market continued to witness moderate decrease in demand with sluggish market sentiments. The new launches also recorded a fall when compared with August.

Thane sub-market saw the maximum launches during the month of September.

New Delhi: Stagnancy led to slight increase of sales, especially in low-ticket sized projects. Spot discounts, flexible payment plans and freebies were still available across projects with more launches being seen in the affordable and mid-segment range in the capital.

Kolkata: Residential demand continued to be stable in the mid-end and upper-mid end category.