Real estate projects saw Rs 1-trillion investments in the past two years. That is set to go up by three times over the next couple of years as developers bet big on the boom in residential property and sustained leasing activity in commercial property. Virtually every company in the space is spending crores to buy land parcels and to develop them.

Anand Kulkarni , director, Crisil Ratings, points out the capital committed across residential and commercial properties in FY24 and FY25 would be around Rs 3 trillion.

So promising is the outlook that last year alone about 1,185 acres was picked up while 410 million sq ft of residential properties were launched. The stakes are getting bigger with project launches tipped to jump by 25% this year. Moreover, the tab for construction could be as high as Rs 75,000 crore, Sangram Baviskar, founding member and MD-real estate at TruBoard Partners estimates.


Real estate sales have been on the upswing in the aftermath of the pandemic. Home sales hit a decadal high in Q1FY24 with nearly 130,000 units sold across the top seven cities, according to Anarock Property Consultants. Sales have since tapered off in Q2—which saw a sequential decline. Nonetheless, they are tipped to grow 8-10% in 2024 on a base of 480,000 units in 2023. Office absorption is also on an uptrend with the six months to June recording 29.4 million sq ft, a 19% jump over the first half of FY23, according to Colliers. Absorption could cross 50 million sq ft before the year is out much like in 2023 and 2022.

Shobhit Agarwal, MD and CEO at Anarock Capital, believes it’s the strong demand that is encouraging developers to launch more projects. Also, the inventory overhang is virtually gone. “There has been a shift by most employers to move away from work-from-home to work-from-office (partially or fully). Also, buyers have felt the need to own larger homes,” said Jayant B Manmadkar, CFO, Brigade Enterprises.

The big boys are all upping the ante. Brigade Enterprises, for instance, is expected to buy land worth `1,200 crore annually and spend some `6,250 crore on constructing residential property. It will develop 16 million sq ft of projects which are in the pipeline; of this, around 12.5 million sq ft is in the residential sector in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mysore. The company is also spending `850 crore on hospitality projects as it looks to add 1,000 hotel keys.

Manmadkar says most developers should continue to generate strong cash flows which they can put to work. At the same time, money is being mopped up via IPOs, QIPs and rights issues. As Anarock’s Agarwal points out, “The improved cash flow visibility and the better corporate governance under RERA have given financial institutions confidence in developers, he said.

Prestige Estate Projects has said it will sell `5,000 crore worth of shares to institutional investors. The company, which incurred a capex of `3,000-4,000 crore across segments last year, is looking to incur similar amount this year, the management indicated on a recent earnings call. The company also plans to monetise its hotel business by selling shares of its arm Prestige Hospitality Ventures. In FY24, it achieved the highest-ever launches of 31 million sq ft in the residential business with a GDV (gross development value) of `21,000 crore. Bengaluru-based Sattva Group plans to invest `12,000-14,000 crore in the next 2-3 years developing commercial office, residential and hotel projects.

Spurred by rising demand, hotels too are adding capacity. Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) recently said it has commenced a five-year capital deployment plan of `3,500 crore. The money would be used to upgrade assets, build capabilities and for select new projects. The company plans to open 25 hotels in FY25. It will also introduce a new format for the Gateway brand as it moves towards a 100 hotel portfolio by 2030.

(This concludes the series on private capex champions)