The book “Real Estate: The Good, The Bad & The Unanswered” by Deepesh Salgia, Director at Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate and published by Twagaa Publications was unveiled by Vijay Satbir Singh (IAS Retired, Member, MahaRERA), Rajiv Sabharwal (CEO & MD Tata Capital Ltd.), KG Krishnamurthy and Boman Irani.
Set in the fictional Pinnacle Institute of Management, a B-school in Mumbai, Deepesh Salgia’s debut offering, Real Estate: The Good, The Bad & The Unanswered, artfully blends fact with fiction to narrate 125 years of the history of Real Estate in India. Through diverse formats ranging from dialogue, debates, discourses, Q&As, analyses and blogs, Salgia presents a well-researched ‘biography’ of Real Estate in India, and its future for the next 25 years.
Speaking at the launch, author Deepesh Salgia remarked on the various issues such as the role of owners in the real estate organisations, the morals and moralities in this business as well as innovation in real estate, “During my 25 years in Real Estate, I have realized that the business parameters or principles of microeconomics that are used to assess most other businesses are not applicable to Real Estate for example, real estate is largely a business of projects. In most businesses, Project Finance is done through long term loans and equity capital. In real estate, a big source of finance is advances from customers. Therefore, revenues are used as a source of project finance and when that happens, it is the marketing person who decides your Debt/ Equity ratio. Where else does that happen? There are many such issues like limited role of market share as a strategic tool (since market shares for majority of the players are in basis points) or limited role of economies of scale ( since it is the smaller developers who have the cost advantage ) and so on. I was very convinced that there is a strong case for separate research in real estate. And I believe innovations have almost always come from outside rather than from within the sector."
“Through a four-quadrant perspective (developer, customer, regulator, financier), Salgia offers a knowledge platform apt for both practitioners as well as theorists of real estate,” said Boman Irani, President CREDAI-MCHI.
Praising the book, K. G. Krishnamurthy said, "Developers are able to see and aim, what a consultant or expert cannot see. A developer is a person who takes decisions for a problem which is not known to him."
Applauding the book, Vijay Satbir said, “Future of Real Estate is very bright and the government is always looking to have constant support and help in policy advocacy”.
