[Reader-list] On Delhi

[Rana Dasgupta]

Hello Taha

I don't really know why you're continuing to argue this point - that 
real estate is going down.  As even the original text makes clear, the 
real-estate barons of the 90s and early 00s are moving out of real 
estate into other industries with different cycles (in MC's case: 
food).  As I said before, these are businessmen, and their whole energy 
is devoted to assessing the risks and returns attached to possible 
investments.  If you are able to look at the Indian real estate market 
now and see that future gains will be under pressure, don't you think 
they must have realised this long ago?

R


Taha Mehmood wrote:
> Dear Rana,
>
> Sure! As of now I do agree that people like KP of the DLF or MC for
> that matter are walking on an astral plane however if we were to allow
> ourselves to recede from the infectiously tactile world of real
> estate, to recede to rather cold confines of common sense garnered
> from years of analyzing hard data then maybe we could acknowledge that
> even real estate for whatever it is worth, is a business at the end of
> the day. And it also has its cycles.
>
> In cities like London for instance there are structures like Canary
> Wharf. Some would argue Canary Wharf as being the first world
> equivalent of hyper real office/shopping complexes as those built by
> MC's and KP's of Delhi. However, the real profit was not harvested by
> people who built these structures. The real profit, in terms of mind
> boggling return on investment went to companies who bought those
> companies who built these structures in the first place. The original
> builders were hyped for a decade or so and then subsequently went
> bust. Because it could not sustain a balance between real demand and
> expected/projected demand.
>
> The real estate story in Delhi, it seems, is following a similar path.
> The original ground work which needed a lot of weeding out and a lot
> of smoothening of processes was done by local players. Now I think the
> field is slowly becoming 'flat' for bigger players to move in.
>
>  I, for one, will not be surprised to see that the demographics of
> real estate players going in for a major over haul in a few years time
> provided there is enough legislation to back the new entrants. We know
> that major architectural consultancies like Arup and Laing O' Rourke
> have already started looking at India in a big way. Even Emaar people
> are entering the country. Therefore I would like to think that there's
> going to be a lot of turf war amongst these players. In such an event,
> which is highly likely, would you really bet on people like MC's
> chasing their imperial dreams, when their own little fiefs are going
> to be under some pressure to share the pie?
>
> Warm regards
>
> Taha
>
>
>   

-- 
"I'm an ex-citizen of nowhere. And sometimes I get mighty homesick."

Rana Dasgupta
www.ranadasgupta.com