Good morning, India has emerged as a global leader in outsourced IT services and the industry is poised to grow to USD350 billion over the next five years, per reports.
However, if chances arising from real estate, logistics, and resource planning are tapped to their full potential, there can easily be a USD1 trillion market opportunity for Indian companies in the next decade.
😷↔1 metre↔😷
J&K Signs 39 MOUs Worth 18,000+ Cr.
The first ever day-long real estate summit in Jammu and Kashmir was held on Monday and boy-oh-boy, the state signed 39 memorandums of understanding (MOUs), collectively valued at over INR 18,000 crore.
Time To Build Something Serious
Some of the country's top rated developers agreed to build 19 residential, 8 commercial, 4 hospitality, 3 infrastructure, 2 finance, and 3 film and entertainment projects.
But all that construction will need skills and knowing this, NAREDCO has signed a deal to undertake the training of 10,000 construction and related skilled workers.
Other Sweeteners
🍦 The summit saw the formal launch of the Model Tenancy Act, meaning landlords and tenants can both rest easy in a transparent rental economy.
🍦 The J&K Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) website was launched at the summit, along with the Auction of Assets Portal, affordable rental housing complexes scheme at Sunjwan in Jammu, housing schemes, and the J&K Housing Mission Portal.
🍦 Regressive land laws of the past gave way to a new system that enables easy and accurate transfer of land ownership for agricultural, industrial, commercial or residential use.
🍦 A fast-track single window system was announced by the administration for all proposed projects, assuring quick approvals for shorter development periods.
🍦 1,000 new EWS apartments under PMAY were launched at the summit, with a commitment that many more would be allotted and built in the near future.
🍦 Real estate developer, Signature Global, revealed its plans to invest INR 2,000 crore in Jammu & Kashmir to develop 10,000 homes, a majority of which will be in the affordable category.
Way Ahead
🎙 "By March 2022, we will be able to bring an investment of INR 60,000 crore to Jammu and Kashmir", said Lt. Governor Sinha.
2021 Rewind - Tape 1
Since we started sending out this newsletter in September 2021, here are some of the unmissable headlines of 2021.
🔼 Meta(verse): Facebook may have been the only one to change its name, but corporate giants from Microsoft to Nike are also investing deeply in metaverse products. As Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told Bloomberg, “The metaverse is a term like the internet. No company can own it.” Sorry, Mark.
🔼 Bitcoin City: El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, and is issuing USD1 billion in bitcoin-backed sovereign bonds to help build the world's first Bitcoin City.
🔼 Net Zero by 2070: In a much awaited announcement towards deep decarbonisation and a '1.5 degree' future for the planet, India said that it would achieve a Net Zero carbon footprint by 2070.
🔼 Data Centres: With growing digital adoption and over 800 million smartphones by 2022, every UPI transaction, regional movie, music, videos, and whatnot needs to find a home on the cloud.
Oh, wait. Not all headlines are joyous.
🔽 Noida's Yellow Ceiling: Noida's real estate projects are a messy collage of unfinished images, with errant practices leaving thousands of families sucking their thumbs after parting with their hard earned money.
🔽 ibuying and Zillow: iBuying, with all the tech and big data powering it, is still not a fully automated process, and that’s where Zillow is in a soup.
🔽 Housing Crisis: Soaring property prices are forcing people all over the world to abandon all hope of owning a home and the fallout is shaking up governments.
🔽 China's Evergrande: Chinese real estate giant Evergrande is soooo (just picture our fingers super close together) close to imploding under its own weight.
📼 Tapes 2 and 3 follow in the last two editions of this newsletter in 2021.
We've Got This
In a highly symbolic image we found on twitter, Baobab trees seem to be preventing the sky from falling - something we are literally driving this planet to, with our recklessly increasing carbon footprint.
📌 Baobabs store water in the trunk (up to 120,000 litres) to endure harsh drought conditions.
These great trees grow in seasonally arid areas, and are deciduous, shedding their leaves during the dry season. Climate change is threatening their existence too.
ESG: The New Commercial Real Estate Trend
Covid and its signature lockdowns have forced us to re-evaluate workspaces, and as climate disasters occur more often, we will need to also re-evaluate how these workspaces are built and operated.
ESG Is Now An Expectation
Per CBRE’s 2021 Global Investor Intentions Survey, 60% of respondents said they have already adopted environment, sustainability and governance (ESG) criteria as part of their investment strategies.
And that's because with rougher weather and increased energy consumption, a property’s longevity and its carbon footprint are becoming important factors in driving investor interest and occupancy rates.
Major ESG Trends In Commercial Real Estate
🍀 Green Leases: Green leases financially incentivize occupiers/tenants to take part in energy conservation, waste reduction and other sustainable actions. And green leases are growing in popularity.
Per a recent JLL study, 34% of global occupants already have green lease clauses, while an additional 40% plan to sign them by 2025.
🍀 Energy Efficiency: High energy consumption by office buildings is no longer cool with occupiers.
In the real world, HVAC sensors can limit energy consumption, while Internet of Things (IOT) hardware can regulate ventilation, heating and lighting, meaning real estate technology can help both developers and occupiers meet their energy targets.
🍀 Responsible Investment: Meeting carbon footprint benchmarks is becoming increasingly necessary for property owners to secure investments and for investors to attract occupiers.
As ESG regulation goes mainstream, and is increasingly deployed to evaluate a property, CRE developers and investors must stay on top of their sustainability commitment.
🍀 Occupier Health And Wellness: The social implementation of an ESG strategy can range from refining employee wellness initiatives to creating employee safety and training programs.
Research says 66% of employees worry about their health and safety when returning to the office. Providing occupiers with peace of mind will be critical for property owners to drive occupancy rates.
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⚽ Before we forget, here's another 2021 headline that could certainly make it to the ‘best-regards’ blurb.
Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi shocked the soccer world when he decided to leave FC Barcelona in August.
Messi—who’d spent 21 years with the team, joining when he was just 13 years old—moved to French super team PSG, a wealthy club backed by Qatar.
See you tomorrow. 💚
☕ The Crew@Ginger Chai