India’s real estate market is getting very, very warm.
It still may be a fragmented industry with high transaction costs and an absence of transparency, but it is whetting the appetites of domestic and overseas investors. In India, changing government policies and a focus on infrastructure are driving up the demand for housing developments, malls and offices.
“For investors seeking the high returns that are no longer possible in the mature European and North American real estate markets, India and China are hot,” said Prakash Gurbaxani, the chief executive of TSI Ventures in Bangalore, a joint venture of Tishman Speyer Properties of New York and ICICI Bank, based in Mumbai.
“Every foreign investor group, including pension funds, high-net-worth individuals and private equity funds, are all looking at this sector,” said Gurbaxani, whose company has planned to invest more than $1 billion in the industry in the next few years.
In the past, investors were wary of the opaque business practices in Indian real estate. The land laws were archaic, mortgage financing was expensive and the quality of the developments was...