Despite the hurdles posed by COVID-19, Parvez Khalid, Associate Executive Director, Advisory & Transaction, CBRE, stated that the real estate sector's sentiment has significantly improved. “The realty sector of the city has proven to be robust, and affordability of the properties is one of the biggest factors buyers are in the market despite the health crisis.”
Ashok Saraf- Chairman, Sugam Homes said, “Currently we are seeing very good investor interest in warehousing projects, showrooms and offices as they offer good rental yields. The co-working spaces are also becoming popular in Kolkata and have a good growth potential.”
On the key trends in Kolkata, Basant Kumar Parakh, Managing Director, Orbit Group stated “The residential sector has always performed well in Kolkata. Over the last couple of years, we've seen a significant increase in confidence in the residential sector, particularly in affordable housing. The sector will continue to develop projects that can offer amenities in the building complex within an affordable budget.”
Pradip Kumar Chopra, Chairman & Managing Director, PS Group added, “Kolkata buyers are mostly well informed and this keeps the builders on toes to perform better, offer right projects and keep the transactions transparent. This also ensures that the right kind of builders stay in the industry that can deliver on quality and on time. This is one of the reasons Kolkata has least number of stalled projects compared to other cities.”
Raj Vardhan Patodia, Chairman & Managing Director, Signum Group speaking about the millennial buyers expressed, “The age of the buyers has come down so the requirements have also changed. Affordable luxury is the latest demand of the homebuyers. So as a builder we are designing projects to offer amenities within affordable prices such as more open spaces, club and facilities like sports swimming pool, jogging tracks and gym in the complex.”
THE CHALLENGES
Pradip Chopra believes that the greatest challenge in Kolkata is the sustainable redevelopment of slum areas. “Government needs to come up with a suitable policy for in-situ development of land parcels for the inhabitants that can encourage private participation as well.”
Parvej Khalid was of the view said, “Kolkata has the cheapest land in comparison to any other metropolitan city. This can support affordable housing development. However, what lacks is a composite land policy by the government to make land acquisition easier.”
Ashok Saraf agreed, "There should be a clear cut zoning policy from the government with clear land usage guidelines so that the developers can envisage project accordingly. The land use conversion rules too need to be overhauled.”
Raj Vardhan Patodia stated that housing for all has still remained a dream for many. “An aggressive policy intervention, raw material cost reduction, incentives to developers and subsidies to the homebuyers can only help fulfilling this mission.”
Basant Parakh added, “The state government can look at devising a land policy where builders can take a larger chunk, get it registered with them and develop projects that are regulated by the government agency, a process similar to PPP but with more independent private sector participation.”
THE POTENTIAL
As per Raj Vardhan Patodia, technology adoption has made the real estate processes faster and construction times shorter. This will give a big boost to the realty sector of Kolkata. “Also, smaller office spaces with Grade A infrastructure are seeing rising demand in suburban and CBD locations.”
Basant Parakh added, “Kolkata is seeing developers now becoming part of heritage builings restoration which has set the way forward to maintain the unique identity of the city and also making it an attractive city to invest and live in.”
Ashok Saraf mentioned that there will be lot of demand from the burgeoning IT sector in the city for office spaces and residential projects in the near future. “IT sector will be the driving force behind the realty growth in the city.”
According to Pradip Kumar Chopra, Kolkata has a lot of untapped potential in terms of skilled manpower and land development. “Indian and international IT companies are setting up base here because of the availability of skilled workforce and low cost of operations. This offers immense growth opportunities for the real estate.”
Parvez Khalid summarized that while the challenges remain in terms of land policies and rising raw material prices, the city infrastructure is developing, making more land available for development with new asset classes like data centre, warehousing and industrial coming in the city.”
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