The COVID-19 pandemic created a huge dent in every industry, including the real estate industry too. However, the industry kept on introducing new and innovative ideas to its optimum resulting in a timely revival. Especially the residential segment, despite high amounts of activity in the industry; is still facing a huge shortage of affordable houses in the country.
India real estate sector to a great extent, especially the uncertainty revolving around the nation wide lockdowns, but now since most of the things are back on track, real estate sector is also bouncing back to being at pre-pandemic levels.Mr. Sudarshan Lodha, Co-founder and CEO, Strata, giving us a insight of what happened in the real estate sector in 2021 and what may come in 2022.
He says, “After 2020, which almost halted the real estate industry due to the first wave, the impact of the second wave was considerably lower, and this year witnessed gradual growth in real estate investment both in residential and commercial properties. The primary trend we saw this year was exponential growth in demand for warehousing space, crossing transactions of over 31 million sq. ft. The key reasons behind this growth are the online shopping trend that rose during the pandemic and government policies like allowing 100% FDI in the warehousing industry. This sector is expected to witness accelerated growth coming the year 2022. With the Covid-19 likely to be in the endemic phase in 2022, large companies have announced bringing back the workforce to office in full strength.
We expect modest growth in office space absorption, including co-working premises in 2022, which is expected to rise to 26 million sq. ft. in 2022 as companies are now increasingly adopting hybrid working culture. So, with these growth factors and the economy opening up, we expect more investments to come through a fractional route in commercial real estate. Additionally, fractional investment in premium commercial property has seen a great demand in the current year, which is likely to become one of the leading alternate investment platforms in the coming year.”