THE MARKET MAKER

Murali Malayappan, CMD, Shriram Properties, says understanding the science of real estate development will only foster growth and acceptability

- JAYASHREE KINI MENDES

In the first 10 minutes of the interview, Murali M, CMD, Shriram Properties, has twice debunked the notion that the real estate market is in a slump. His peers, when they read this, would possibly raise their brows. At a time when most developers are reeling under growing inventory, Murali has been selling apartments at a faster pace than he builds them. Not only that, he has been announcing new projects across cities where he has a presence.

Ask him about it and he says candidly, “For long, there’s a pithy maxim in our business. Give the customers what they want. Going against market demand and trends is not in anyone’s interest.”

Consider this: About 85% of real estate in the country is sold in the 10 large cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, and Kolkata. “One has to identify and discern the different segments of commercial, hospitality, residential and know what will work. A residential building will sell quickly if one does the math to figure out how much commercial real estate was sold. That tells you with more offices in the area, there will be demand for housing,” he adds.

Today, the developer has a total 54.87 million sq-ft either under construction or in the pipeline, across 31 projects.

BUILD, BUILD, BUILD