INDIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Vivek Chandy, Archana Tewary, Kumarmanglam Vijay and Brijita Prakash, JSA
of infrastructure continues to have a multiplier effect on the real estate sector, with increased focus on public-private partnership projects. The government continues to emphasise devel - opment of affordable housing, with the 2025-26 budget including a second Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH) fund, with an INR150 billion allocation. Leasing documents have become significantly more sophisticated, and in several cases, facili - ties over 1 million sq ft have been taken on lease in single transactions. Some large commercial transactions include ANZ leasing over 600,000 sq ft in Manyata Tech Park, Bengaluru; Amazon leasing around 1 million sq ft on New Airport Road, Bengaluru; and Google leasing around 650,000 sq ft in Whitefield, Bengaluru. In commercial leasing, India is also seeing the growth of serviced office space companies, as many businesses are opting for serviced office spaces, even when the space requirement is 30,000 sq ft and over, to minimise capital invest - ments. Inflation and increasing interest rates seem to have impacted certain segments of the residen - tial market due to the increasing cost of acqui - sition. However, some announcements in the 2025-26 budget, including reducing income tax rates, will mitigate the impact thereof to some extent. Real estate has been revolutionised by the adop - tion of disruptive technologies, notably block - chain and proptech. Proptech streamlines and connects the processes for participants in all stages of real estate transactions, including buy - ers, sellers, brokers, lenders and landlords.
The Andhra Pradesh government has partnered with a Swedish start-up to build its blockchain- based solution. NITIAayog has previously high - lighted its efforts towards IndiaChain, a block - chain infrastructure for managing public records, which will also be used for maintaining land records. Many state governments are work - ing to integrate blockchain-based ledgers into the digital land record system, and implement - ing measures to digitise records to make the process of land surveys and other procedural aspects (including payment of taxes) easier. The sector is attracting debt investment from pri - vate credit funds where traditional bank financ - ing is unavailable, especially in early develop - ment. Additionally, family offices have become significant investors in real estate and private credit. A growing trend is the fractional ownership of commercial real estate, allowing retail investors to participate in a high-yield market. As per mar - ket data, the market size of fractional owner - ship properties in India is growing at an annual - ised rate of 10.5% and is expected to expand to USD8.9 million in 2025. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) amended the SEBI (REIT) Regulations 2014 to introduce a framework for SM REITs on 8 March 2024, to regulate fractional ownership platforms. The Reserve Bank of India has recently announced a cut in repo rates by 25 basis points, which is expected to reduce the interest burden
for investors and home buyers. 1.3 Proposals for Reform
The government has previously made certain amendments to FDI policy in real estate. While there are no significant indications from the government at time of writing, foreign investors
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