Investment in Indian Real Estate estimated at USD3 billion

"From buyouts to joint venture funds and partnerships in developing properties, it is anticipated that there will be a range of funds coming into India in the next 15 months", stated Simon O'Herlihy General Manager of Motivate events organisers of the Home Owner Dubai Real Estate Seminars. "Already half a billion dollars worth of approvals is in place. In the next 24 to 36 months, the funds coming into India could touch anything between $3-5 billion."

A recent Jones Lang Lasalles report stated that in the first half of this financial year, transactions have grown 20 per cent year-on-year over the last fiscal. Most funds are expected to come from North American investors, European real estate funds and multinational developers from the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions who have been looking out for opportunities in India.

"In recent months there have been some interesting deals being done in Indian real estate" said O'Herlihy. "Those include dedicated real estate funds like Tishman Speyers which has tied up ICICI to raise $6 million for a joint VC fund and developers like Dubai-based Emaar which tied up a deal with Delhi-based developer MGF for half a billion dollars worth projects with a capital outlay of $4 billion".

"All this, of course, is in addition to the funds being raised by the Indian financial institutions like HDFC, ICICI and IDFC abroad", says O'Herlihy. "The money is likely to go into developing business and IT parks, townships with a majority of the funds going into top 7or 8 cities. Tier 2 cities could also get a chunk of the funds if tier 1 developers were to bring in a really big project."

Home Owner Dubai's Real Estate and Investment Seminars, part of Home Owner Dubai, 26-28 January 2006 at the Madinat Arena, will be highlighting the booming Indian real estate sector.

"With the sector reported to be growing at 30 per cent annually, the real estate sector in India is increasingly attractive to those interested in investing in real estate" stated O'Herlihy. "A quickly maturing market is adding to the sheen for global investors".

"Three years ago the business consisted of leveraging debt for a high net worth individual who wanted to invest in property in India. Today the market has matured to a point where a city like Hyderabad can absorb two Rs 2 billion deals within a month" said O'Herlihy.