Hyderabad realty offers high growth potential

Hyderabad: The real estate sector in Hyderabad will offer huge potential for growth and the city will continue to be best destination for realty investors, feel delegates of 11th NAR-India Annual Convention which got underway in the city on Saturday.

"Hyderabad real estate market is doing wonderfully well. The city witnessed sea change in last the seven to eight years. Some people who attended NAR-India Convention in the city back in 2011 came to this convention too.

They say they have seen dramatic change in the City of Pearls and are surprised by new office and commercial complexes that have come up here," Tarun Bhatia of Shaloo Agencies, a New Delhi-based real estate consultancy, told The Hans India.

Currently, Treasurer of NAR-India, he assumed charge as president-elect of NAR-India on Saturday. He consultancy handled sales of Trump Towers owned by US President Donald Trump's company in Gurugram Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Deloitte, etc, have their offices here and they generate employment.

"Real estate market will do well where employment opportunities are generated. I still feel that Hyderabad is a value city where prices have not gone through the roof and it is still affordable to lots of people," he pointed out.

He however said infrastructure in the city could be better. "But road from airport to city is fabulous. Areas like Gachibowli is congested and needs some improvement. Nevertheless, I am surprised by malls here. I am really impressed," he said.

Bhatia further said that Hyderabad would offer a huge potential for growth. "Soon, it will be on par with Mumbai and New Delhi in some areas. It is matter of time before real estate prices in Hyderabad will hit the level of Mumbai and Delhi," he added.

Samir Arora, General Secretary of Bengaluru-based Confederation of Real Estate Associates (India) (CREA(I)), said that realty went through an unimaginable boom in Hyderabad in last three years.

"The land that was available for Rs 5-10 crore an acre three years ago now costs not less than Rs 25-30 crore. It was a Herculean jump, especially in Hi-tech City and similar areas," he said.

Arora, also co-chairman of 11th NAR-India Convention being held here, further said that Bengaluru and Hyderabad had been three strongest markets in the last three years. "Property prices fell a bit across India in the last three years. But that was not the case in Bengaluru," he said.

Realty in Hyderabad and Bengaluru will continue to grow so long as IT sector does well. "In these IT-driven cities, people get high salaries and so their loan eligibility is also high. And it is also white (legal) money. Hence, people will continue to buy residential units in these two cities.

So, Hyderabad and Bengaluru will offer high growth potential," Arora maintained.

On slowdown in realty across India, he said real estate would always go through cycles. "I don't think the current slowdown in India's realty is not a recession. It is a correction. The sector had been going up and up for eight rows in a row.

Then it faced a tsunami, an earthquake and a volcano eruption in quick succession in the form of demonetisation, RERA and GST and went into correction. But this correction has been long overdue," he said.

As someone who has two decades of experience in real estate, I can confidently say that real estate may not give the returns the way it did earlier, but still it will still offer highest returns when compared with gold, stocks and other investment avenues, he added.

"What happens with a correction is that investors get out of the market while end users will continue to purchase properties. That's why sales look little slower. However, real estate across the country will start touching new highs in a year," he predicted.