festive offers along with cheaper home loans rates makes it an attractive time to purchase property

RMZ, CPPIB buys L&T property in Bengaluru for Rs 640cr

Private equity major TPG Capital and Starwood Capital-backed real estate developer Shriram Properties is planning to raise about Rs 1,500 crore through its Initial Public Offering (IPO), said two persons familiar with the development. The south India-based developer's maiden share sale is expected to be concluded by March 2019."We are at an advanced stage of finalising the plans for the IPO and strategy with our board and existing private equity investors. We expect to take a final decision on further steps over the next few weeks," M Murali, MD, Shriram Properties, told ET while confirming the story. He, however, did not elaborate on the size of the share sale.

In a sign indicting a big recovery in realty developers' confidence in the market, residential launches have more than doubled sequentially during the first half of 2018. Residential launches across top 8 cities have witnessed over 106% sequential and 68% on-year jump during the period.The rise in number of launches by developers is led by improvement in homebuyers' response and marginal drop in inventory levels despite new supply addition. While prices have remained stagnant during the period across top 8 cities, sales have grown by 11% from a year ago, showed data from Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research.

The housing inventory stood at 8.08 lakh units by October 2017, witnessing a 10% decline over the previous reported inventory number. Following a slew of policy initiatives and regulatory changes in 2017-18, affordable housing offers 6-8 billion sq. ft. development opportunity in India over the next 3-4 years, showed a CARE Ratings report.Affordable housing segment of late is being primarily driven by government policies and incentives. As per Government estimates, over 40 million urban homes need to be constructed by 2022 in order to achieve its housing for all targets.

Marquee global investors GIC of Singapore, Temasek-owned Mapletree and Blackstone Group, among others, are vying to acquire one of the oldest technology office zones located in Bengaluru — IBC Knowledge Park — for over Rs 2,300 crore, people directly aware of the matter said.India Builders Corp, or IBC, a legacy office space developer in southern India, is selling a 2.2-million-sqft office asset, which counts Accenture, IBM, Byju's and Swiggy as tenants. Global investors, chasing stable yields in office real estate, have limited assets of scale in Asia's third-largest economy, driven by a strong services sector.

Puravankara is in talks with domestic funds to float a platform for Provident Housing, the real estate firm's unit that builds affordable houses.According to the proposal, the joint platform will buy land across major cities in India, especially in the South, to develop affordable housing projects. The maiden project under this is expected to come up in Bengaluru where the plan is to acquire 70 acres. "We are in talks with some funds and are likely to close a deal soon. The deal size is not yet decided," said Ashish Puravankara, Managing Director of Bengaluru-based Puravankara.