Demand for office space in Hyderabad outpaced supply in 2016, surging to the highest level since 2011 as large multinational firms expanded their presence in the city. According to a property consultancy firm, about 5.6 million sq ft of office space was leased in the city during the year, up 37% from a year ago.
In contrast, only about 2.3 million sq ft of new office space came up in the city during the year.
Read more: Economic Times
Bengaluru remained on a high growth trajectory and maintained its leading status among the key cities, by retaining a 31% share of the total occupier demand, followed by Delhi-NCR (18%.) Hyderabad and Chennai stood on 13% each, while Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata accounted for 14%, 9% and 2%, respectively, of the overall leasing volume. In 2016, 27.2 million sq ft (2.53 million sq metres) of grade A new supply was released into the market. This was insufficient to cope with the very strong demand, especially in markets such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune and resulted in a significant fall in vacancy levels and an increase in office rents in most of the micro-markets in these cities.
Read more: Moneycontrol
Global real estate transaction platform Square Yards on Thursday announced expansion of its operations in Melbourne, Australia. After Australia, this is the company’s second office at Sydney, located at 600 Bourke Place, Bourke Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.
“Square Yards’ ground presence in Melbourne will help it tap better into the real estate industry of Australia, that is currently enjoying an accelerated growth on the backdrop of higher demand,” said COO and co-founder Square Yards, Kanika Gupta Shori. Square Yards major growth strategy in Australia will be cornered around developing a network of local agents.
Read more: ANI
Office space absorption in Delhi-NCR declined by over 8 per cent last year due to sharp fall in supply but the situation is expected to improve in 2017 with a completion of several commercial projects, according to a property consultant. According to the data, office space leasing stood at 8.6 million sq ft during 2016 compared to 9.4 million sq ft in the previous year. Office space supply plunged to 2.8 million sq ft last year from 10.2 million sq ft in 2015, the data showed.
In the seven major cities of the country, office space leasing rose by 9 per cent last year at record 43 million sq ft on robust demand from corporates looking to expand their operations.
Read more: Economic Times
To expand its storage capacity in India, Amazon had opened its largest Fulfilment Centre in Sonipat, Haryana. US-based e-commerce giant Amazon took about a million square feet of office spaces on lease last year, making it equal to what it took between 2008 and 2015 in the country. Founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said last year that it would invest another $3 billion in India, amid intense competition in the e-commerce space.
Much of the leased space could be used for seller and development services, besides a 30,000-sq ft building in Bandra Kurla Complex for its India headquarters. According to Propstack, a data analytics firm for commercial property transactions, various Amazon entities have leased about 1.3 million sq ft since 2008.
Read more: Business Standard
In a deal that is could lead to Thomson Reuters likely shifting its India headquarters to One Indiabulls Center in Mumbai, the company has recently leased 32,416 square feet office space in the commercial building in Lower Parel, Mumbai, according to two people in the know of the development.
The office space, at the 12th floor of One Indiabulls Center, is leased at an all-inclusive monthly rental of Rs 180 per sq ft, which includes the registered rental value and common area charges, taking the annual payout to Rs 7 crore, according to one of the persons mentioned above.
Read more: Economic Times
Is limited supply in the office market space leading to high rentals? Market seems to indicate that commercial rental market is likely to peak anywhere between 5 and 12 per cent due to limited supply. Developers who have invested in commercial projects also said that they are seeing significant enquiries from prospective tenants with some of them sealing pre-commitment deals to offset a price.
“There is a short supply of commercial projects and we expect rents to move up by at least 10 per cent. Both investors and HNIs are investing in commercial properties,” Vipul Shah, MD, Parinee Group, told BusinessLine. The company said it has sold 1.5 lakh sq feet of the total 11 lakh sq ft in its upcoming Entertainment Project in Andheri. Commercial rents range from ₹50 to ₹150/sq ft depending on the location pan-India.
Ashish Shah, COO, Radius Developers, which counts Amazon and Cisco as its clients, said commercial rentals are expected to grow to the tune of 5-10 per cent.
Read more: The Hindu Business Line
The formation of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) will help in expansion of the quality real estate in India, besides giving developers another instrument to execute their projects. REIT is going to become a reality next 12 months after recent decision of market regulator SEBI.
These listings will provide retail investors a good and an entirely new opportunity to participate in real estate’s growth story in India. This instrument has the potential to attract institutional and retail investors alike because of its inherent nature to provide regular dividends at relatively low-risk levels as compared to other investment schemes in place.
Read more: Bangalore Mirror
Tech companies absorbed almost 60% of the fresh office lease in Noida last year, thereby continuing to fuel real estate growth in this emerging market, a report by a property consultant, India, revealed. The office-absorption report by the real estate researcher further stated that a total of 7,06,063 square metres of office space was absorbed in Noida, Gurgaon and Delhi in 2016.
Noida alone soaked up 36% or 2,51,770 sqm of the office space. Gurgaon, leading the show, absorbed 51% of the office lease while Delhi recorded only 13% space absorption.
Read more: TOI
