QUALITY OF REAL ESTATE
The where-to-be-born index talks about parameters such as “Gender Equality”, “Religious Tolerance”, “Political Freedom”, “Economic Development” etc as the constituents of a good quality of life.
We delve further into this to have a look around the self-made countries, excluding countries that have got rich due to suddenly found mineral (in most cases oil & gas), which have been built by human industry, countries such as the UK, US, France, Japan, China, South Korea, Canada, Germany, Israel etc.emerge. We further find finer but very difficult to measure aspects which exhibit the quality of life in such countries. Some of these are Justice delivery system, Longevity of life, Infant Mortality rate, Nutrition rates, penetration of primary education etc. The challenge in determining these aspects is that they are subjective and not visible to an outside observer. Only those who live long enough in these countries find the remarkable difference in the “Quality of Life”.
Is Quality of Real Estate = Quality of Life
If there was to be one parameter which could be the most visible, demonstrated and easily detectable determinant of “Quality of life” for the country what could that be? (Exception to be made for Oil & Gas-rich nations so as to say who have been plain “Lucky”). That single determinant would undoubtedly be Real Estate, both “Private Real Estate”i.e.Housing and Commercial Production centers (to include Factories, Offices, Warehousing, Retail etc) and “Public Real Estate”i.e. the Infrastructure (to include Roads, Dams, Bridges, Power Stations, Sewerage facilities etc).
The Quantity and Quality of Real Estate and after a certain point the “Quality”. Some constituents of quality to include:
- The types of buildings.
- The technology and material used in the construction of these buildings.
- Per capita power/roads/sewerage/houses/public utility buildings etc.
What do those who travel to the western world (Europe and US) notice without being told, the vivid difference in the quality of Real Estate and Physical Infrastructure? That we still have “kuccha houses” even in urbancenters, “Road/Water/Electricity/Sewerage” etc is still one of the pathetic lowest in the world. That the width of and quality of our Highways makes “Freight Transportation” slow and tedious in India. The quality of dwelling which Indians live in is a far cry from the comforts of a “Western Home”.
Similarly, the image of a government office complex is an old dilapidated building which has been mostly declared unfit for human use but is being pulled on regardless.
Therefore one can say that “Geography” helps in writing the “History” of a nation. So what would change in say the next 10-20-30-40-50 years, most visibly? The “Real Estate”
India would witness a huge change in the “Quality” of its Real Estate in the next 1-5 decades and it is a given. A strong solid “Real Estate” is what forms the Foundation bedrock on which the Masons of a National Economy build the temple of prosperity and wealth.
SOME OF THE CHANGES WHICH WILL OCCUR
1. The vertical length of the Buildings will continue to grow owing to the availability of better technology in construction, vertical movement (better, faster and safer elevators) being more reliable, and authorities being more open to agreeing to grant licenses for such development. This would be more pronounced in “Urban Agglomerations” such as NCR, Mumbai etc but would be visible across other Moffusil cities and towns as well.
The answer to India’s growing urban population lies in developing more concentrated high rise buildings. There obviously are challenges and problems in this kind of development but then the benefits outweigh them.
2. The second improvement which would be visible would be the quality and width of roads. India due to its sheer numbers faces a huge problem of vehicular traffic. With the growth in the economy, the number of vehicles continues to increase in personal, public and freight carrying vehicles. To handle this congestion there would be multilevel roads in the major urban agglomerations.
Very soon it would be normal to find 05 tier roads i.e. 02 underpasses, 01 surface road and 02 elevated roads. 03 tier roads are already functional in a lot of areas with 01 underpass, 01 surface road and 01 elevated road.
Even in smaller towns, the width of roads is bound to increase to cater to the ever going vehicular traffic.
Then the cities will come closer as the same would be impacted by the method of multiple and wider roads. This augmented with faster vehicles would make commuting a tad less painful experience.
3. The third very important difference which would be seen would be a vertical growth of public buildings i.e. High Rise hospitals, Schools, Colleges, Government Offices etc.
4. Next would be the improvement in the commuting and public transport. With the metro spreading itself to Tier 2 cities to include cities such as Jaipur etc they will carry large populations from and to work across the cities.
With these changes, the Geography of Urban India and in a more pronounced manner of the Metropolitan 20 big cities of India is bound to undergo massive changes in the next 20-30 years.
This change in Geography would positively impact the Economy and thus that impact will permeate all aspects of the national life, be it justice delivery system, healthcare, education among many other things.
The green shoots of these changes are already visible. What used to take an entire kingdom to develop such as a “Qutub Minar” or a “Red Fort” is built by a private Developer nowadays.
Hence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Indian Real Estate. In fact, now things are set to improve with the implementation of “RERA” which will bring sanctity to the “Contracts” being written. If one can say in a nutshell then the problem with the industry is “Contractual Failure” but those things are changing, albeit slowly as of now.
Besides if “Real Estate” as a sector fails the economy cannot survive. Hence in my analysis Real Estate purchased at a right price, with the right developer would be very beneficial in due course of time and not in a distant future.
Hence, it would be prudent to understand how to partake in this changing and rapidly changing geography rather than sit on the fences and be a doomsayer. With no hesitation, one would say that those who are reading obituaries on the Real Estate are committing an error.
Are you?