India's Real Estate Market Transparency Among Most-Improved Globally

According to JLL's 2022 Global Real Estate Transparency Index, India's real estate market transparency ranks among the top ten most improved markets worldwide (GRETI). India improved its transparency score from 2.82 to 2.73 between 2020 and 2022, outperforming some of the most transparent markets, including Canada, Belgium, and Spain.

The improvement in India stems from digitization and data availability for transaction processes, as well as general market fundamentals.

In addition to regulatory initiatives like the Model Tenancy Act and the digitization of land registries and market data, India's improvement in transparency is supported by increased institutional investment and the rising number of real estate investment trusts (REITs), which are helping to broaden market data and bring more professionalisation to the sector.

The country will see more capital deployment as it demonstrates consistent efforts to make accurate data available, enforce legal protections for property ownership, and improve the regulatory environment to facilitate the transactions as they move toward greater transparency in India will intensify investor interest and bolster occupier confidence.

Indian real estate regulations like RERA and the digitization of all transaction procedures have made data availability more clean and transparent, which has helped the nation achieve significant progress in ranking. India has made significant progress in sustainability over the past few years. Sustainability will continue to be a major emphasis for the world moving forward. To bring sustainability into the mainstream, nevertheless, there is a need for a more focused and coherent thought process and action plan.

Sustainability Needs Sustained Thinking

The nation needs to improve sustainability tracking if it wants to move up from the current Semi-Transparent list to the coveted Transparent list. For India during the past few years, sustainability has not been one of the key areas for change, but investors and occupiers are driving this transition.

Sustainability would receive more of a push if ECBC compliance and green certifications/ratings were made mandatory. After India's goal for Net Zero by 2070, the regulatory incentive for obligatory tracking and reporting could receive a significant boost. According to JLL's 2022 index, sustainability has been the key factor in improving transparency across markets.

Green and healthy building certifications are being increasingly widely used, and a growing number of nations and localities are establishing laws requiring buildings to meet certain energy efficiency and emissions criteria. However, sustainability metrics continue to be some of the least transparent globally, and the fragmented regulatory environment with various standards being set at the municipal, state, region, and national levels, as well as a proliferating array of sustainability credentials, benchmarks, and standards, is making it harder for investors and businesses to navigate and understand their obligations.

Enhancement of the Transaction Process

India's score improvement in GRETI 2022 was the greatest for this parameter. Access to asset information has greatly enhanced as a result of regulatory actions and the availability of richer and deeper data. The transaction process in India has improved in terms of transparency and significance thanks to reforms that have also pushed for higher professional standards for real estate brokers and a climate where illicit finance can be eliminated through strict anti-money laundering laws.

With a favourable investment climate in place and plenty of chances for investors, India's investment performance indicator has remained stable. Investor tactics have also undergone change and a reset over the past two years. Some nations have risen in the rankings as a result of improved investor favour. India has maintained its position despite raising its overall composite score in this metric.

Interest in Alternative Real Estate Assets

Many investors in the Asia-Pacific region still place a strong emphasis on diversification. In approximately two-thirds of the markets monitored, institutional capital—such as that managed by asset managers, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds—is involved in the alternative real estate sectors. This indicates that there are now higher expectations for openness across specialized property categories like lab space, data centers, and student housing.

Through the intervention of tech platforms and legislative reforms, India has made tremendous advancements in the accessibility of high-frequency data throughout its major cities and core asset classes. For India to quickly move up to the Transparent tier, the sustainability agenda needs to be given more of a push as market transparency increases due to better data access, better corporate governance procedures, and more publicly listed REITs providing more publicly available statistics.

Final thoughts

Transparency and sustainability in India's real estate market are currently combining to produce fresh, perceptive, and paradigm-shifting trends. Global asset benchmarking will be simpler with standardized sustainability monitoring metrics.