Despite a lacklustre performance from domestic realtors this year, international property consultants and data research firms are gearing up for big expansion plans in the country.
IPCs and research firms are leaving no stone unturned in filing all the gaps in offerings from their stable and looking at newer avenues for product differentiation. The strategy includes a foray into newer cities to entering neighbouring the growing Sri Lankan realty market and providing realty data index to the banking regulator. Scientific data research for general home buyers is on also on the cards.
International property consultants (IPC), Jones Lang LaSalle India (JLL), Knight Frank, DTZ and research firms P E Analytics and Liases Foras have already readied a corpus.
JLL which operates in 11 cities has lined up key launches for next year which includes focussing on its Sri Lankan business and starting its industrial practice.
Anuj Puri, Chairman and Country Head for JLL in India, says, “There are a lot of developers who want to launch projects in Sri Lanka and thus we are starting our operations there and also we are going to launch operations in two more cities in tier III which are Ahmedabad and Bhuwaneshwar. We are also getting into residential services with more depth and we will start our industrial practice in the country.”
Puri adds, “There is a lot of interest from American and European manufacturers to set up manufacturing units in areas like Chennai, Gujarat, Pune , Baroda, Delhi-Jaipur industrial
belt. They want to manufacture goods and send them back to their countries and also there is a talent pool available with lower labour costs.”
In the Asia Pacific region, for the September quarter, 2011, JLL reported revenues of $201 million as compared to $165 million for the same period in 2010, an increase of 22 percent, 12 per cent. The company attributed its increase in revenues to Greater China and India.
Peer, Knight Frank India, is looking to increase its presence in the eastern belt of the country.
Pranab Datta, Vice Chairman and managing director, of the company, said, “Even though the environment is becoming turbulent with the global turmoil, we believe there is still a lot of opportunity in the Indian market. We are expanding our presence in West Bengal while consolidating in existing markets. Also we are going to look at new products which will come by the last quarter of this financial year. In our research portfoliowe are looking at more information based analysis for our clients.”
Datta adds, “Knight Frank's Asia Pacific region contributes a large chunk to its entire revenues and we are adopting multi- pronged strategy to contribute to the growth.”
Consultants are betting that realty industry will improve by the end of the calendar year 2012, and thus they want to be ready to ride the expected upturn.
Anshul Jain, Chief Executive Officer, DTZ India, an IPC based out of Gurgaon says, “We are really looking at cautious growth in the sector and in the coming year we are expanding our service line in the commercial office space in various cities as we expect investments to be back in the sector by the end of 2012.”
P E Analytics, which ows and operates Prop Equity, an online subscription based real estate data platform is planning to add six new cities in its database in 2012.
Samir Jasuja, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at PropEquity, said, “We are collaborating with a banking regulatory body and a commodity exchange to develop housing starts and realty indices We are also looking at launching three new products, Collateral Risk Management (CRM) targeted at financial institutions, a business to consumer product for retail customers, and Catchment Area Analysis for developers, which are expected to go live in the next six months in phases.”
Jasuja adds, “We are very well funded for our expansion plans, and if everything goes according to our plan, then we are looking at a Nasdaq listing in the next 3-4 years.”
Real estate rating and research firm, Liases Foras, founded by Pankaj Kapoor, says, “We are looking and testing to come up with a scientific research product in next 3-4 months. We are also looking at valuations of properties and also we will be expanding in other 3-4 cities for data collection.”
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