Demand for commercial real estate is going to increase

At a time when India’s housing market is yet to recover from a prolonged slump, demand for commercial real estate has continued to grow with several large institutional investors pouring big investments into the segment. “India is a multi-decade story for Brookfield and not a five year story. We have a large footprint in India but we still call ourselves a start up in the larger context of the Brookfield platform we have globally. Real estate houses the economy and the economy is doing well," said Ankur Gupta, managing director & regional head, India real estate, Brookfield Asset Management. Chintan Patel, partner - deal advisory, (real estate and hospitality), KPMG in India said that the market is in a cycle where residential has run its course. “However, we still have a GDP in excess of 6.5 -7% and still doing well, which means the demand for commercial will increase as we move forward," he said. Rajesh Agarwal, chief executive officer and managing director, Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors added that with the advent of long term investors that commercial real estate market has significantly evolved over the last decade. “The attractiveness of commercial sector is relatively higher. There is a lot of maturity in terms of how investors look at commercial as compared to residential. Capital has been flowing far maturely to a select set of investors and select of operators," he said.