‘Slowdown Is A Mere Pause’ J C Sharma, MD, Sobha Group

Bangalore-based Sobha Developers, a Rs. 12 billion listed company has created a niche as a preferred real estate brand in the country. Since its inception in 1995, the company has gone from strength to strength, developing over 36 msf of area with over three dozen completed residential/ commercial in house projects. Having set bench marks for quality standards, sound business practices and customer-centric approach in the South, Sobha is now embarking on pan-India expansion in a big way. J C Sharma , MD, Sobha Group, in an exclusive interview with Realty Plus shares his company’s plans to expand its footprint across India and the emerging trends, opportunities and challenges in the real estate sector. Excerpts:

Q. What are the emerging trends, challenges and opportunities in the real estate sector?

You will observe that the market is getting consolidated. Large players from different regions are coming to the emerging markets i.e. players from Mumbai are moving to Bangalore or Bangalore-based players are doing projects in Pune etc. Bigger players are getting focused, more confident and scalable than what they were 2-3 years back. Similarly, smaller players are getting marginalized from the branding perspective, from getting good quantum of land and funding etc. Their network doesn’t support them to be relevant, banks don’t give them the money needed, they cannot take their company to the IPO, the terms and conditions for PE funding are quite tough while the market keeps expanding. However, the overall size of India’s market from real estate angle is very bullish. If you look from the point of view of challenges there has been increase in the interest costs which is hurting the customers directly. It is also impacting the developers because their cost of construction is also going up. There is a psychological perception today that prices may come down. All these factors may have brought a slowdown in real estate on all India basis but within that you will also notice that some developers are going for affordable housing, some are doing environment friendly projects while others are going for superior specifications with more facilities. They feel that there will be a virtue which will generate a required comfort and confidence. Source: www.realtyplusmag.com