Rich pickings in india

Confidence in India’s real estate market seems to be at an all time high…

The levels of economic growth in the country are well  known. Indeed, the latest Sunday Times and Forbes rich lists were dotted with an increasing number of super-rich Indians.

Lakshmi Mittal, who these days resides in Britain, is the best known and the richest, but the website also notes that the Forbes rich list includes four Indians in the top ten and 53 billionaires overall, third behind the USA and Russia. Forbes added the prediction that India will top the billionaires poll in 2017.

In all this the point being made is that India is growing fast. Such growth can mean a commercial property boom, but also a residential one, not just in top-end luxury pads for the nouveau riche but also the growing middle class.

Huge investment

Confidence in India's real estate market is such that RREEF, Deutsche Bank's alternative investment manager, has revealed plans to invest over 1$ billion (£501 million) into real estate and infrastructure, the latter being the means of supporting the former as growth requires more in the way of transport links and power.

Kurt Roeloffs, RREEF's regional chief executive, commented: "We think India will be an attractive emerging real estate and infrastructure market for our clients. To that end, we have recently tied up a $400 million mixed-use scheme in Hyderabad

A spokesperson for Assetz noted: “While such investment is necessarily a sign of big business involvement, it is also the kind of thing which promises to keep the Indian economy booming. For smaller investors, the key is to watch how property prices are going, not least in cities where new business investment and infrastructure advancement is taking place. There could be rich pickings to be had in India for longer than just a summer”