[Reader-list] On Delhi

[Taha Mehmood]

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