BOOM TIME

FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS, real estate lobbies have been praying for a white knight. Residential developers in India need last-mile capital to finish large projects as nearly six lakh units are stuck in various stages in the country’s top cities. On November 6, the Union Cabinet agreed to build a fund whose corpus could add up to ₹25,000 crore. The fund would provide priority debt financing for stalled affordable and middle-income housing projects, raising hope that the residential real estate segment – characterised by lack of trust and confidence in developers due to delivery defaults – could finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. Oversupply of high-end projects added to the woes.

But there is another side to India’s real estate coin. Commercial, or office, real estate is booming. The supply is steadily increasing. So are the absorption rates. Vacancies at top-grade buildings are down while rents in many markets have risen. Unlike the residential side, the office market is characterised by transparency, and in most cases, timely delivery.

Although new completions of Grade A (highest quality) spaces started falling in 2015, there was a