MEENA MURTHY KAKKAR - THE PATHFINDERS

Design Head and Partner, Envisage

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The new norms surge the ‘per desk’ cost, both in terms of floor area requirement (which gets upped by 50% to seat the same number), and an additional 30% in infrastructure and 50% increment in the running cost.”

The real estate industry is a preferred typology of investment for many individuals. So, the volatile and fluid status that we are currently in, from an economic point of view, makes it extremely difficult to predict returns in this particular sector in the near future. Thus, fresh investments will be delayed for the moment and on-going projects would see a revision in funding, leading to severe replanning and reconfiguration. Sellers with relatively smaller ticket sizes -- individual property owners or aggregators would refrain from putting their property up for sale during the pandemic to avoid the property being undervalued. However, all of this is just a phase that we need to endure for now. It’s primarily a period of global investment shuffle that’s happening in the country. If, hopefully, India manages to capture the world’s attention as a preferred alternative to another country for investment, we might see better prospects in this sector space sooner. Till that happens, it’s best to keep up with the change and adapt quickly to the new norms and necessities but certainly with an eye on the cost.

Secondly, the construction industry being an extremely collaborative sector, social distancing is currently posing a challenge for the industry. The adoption of technology has helped keep things afloat. However, it’s yet to be integrated seamlessly into the industry. Site work currently is labour intensive in India and not tech-driven. Material selection requires physical sample viewing, and everything has not yet been digitized effectively, and all cannot be carted into the office for a discussion. Thus, market visits are imperative to the process.