Positioning Indian Real Estate For Global Dominance By 2030

TITLE: Positioning Indian Real Estate for Global Dominance by 2030 CHANNEL: ET Now DATE: 2026-06-13 URL: https://youtu.be/_ZETERhGD98

---TRANSCRIPT---

Please welcome on stage. It is my honor to welcome Mr. Schwindar Singh who is the chairman CII real estate for his keynote on positioning Indian real estate for global dominance by 2030. Please welcome on stage Mr. Singh.

Thank you. Thank you. The stage is yours. Am I audible? Good evening everyone. uh for a for an award show I was going to tell the anchor the the energy in the room is a little lesser than what it should be at the beginning of the show itself I don’t know what will happen by the show is ending am I right is the energy low or huh yeah yeah you have to take care of that because [snorts] because they are saying the energy is low and they are only respons responsible for making the energy low. So, so guys a very good evening. Thank you so much for this opportunity. [snorts] I’m going to talk about I’m not going to take too much of time. I’m not going to bore you with lot of statistics but I’m going to share some of my perspective of what is happening in the Indian real estate and we are all very fortunate that we are part of this amazing industry and some of the data points that you’re going to show and all of you are doing your bit. You guys are uh building companies, you guys are building brands, you guys are building [snorts] uh real estate developments. But I think what we are doing together is far greater. There’s a line that I like. India is no longer knocking on the world’s door. It has bought the building. And I’m not just writing it for the sake of it. It is my 30 years experience in capital markets, in banking, in entrepreneurship, in media, in real estate development, consulting, advising that I have started truly believing in it that this is the moment for India.

And you know when I was growing up in the real estate industry, uh it’s been uh half half of my career is banking and capital markets and half of it is real estate. [snorts] Uh I always heard about English is okay.

Is everybody awake? Okay. Thank you. So when I was kind of growing up in this industry [snorts] as the CEO of JLL residential, I built Anna Rock development companies. I always heard one line which said India is the future of real estate. The opportunity in front of India in real estate is amazing. The potential that this country has in real estate is fantastic.

So all of that was future. But now I feel that future has actually come today. And I will tell you why. There are five pillars of Indian real estate that I’m going to discuss with you. But why do I say the future is here? We have global capital. Yes. We have global companies. We have global talent in real estate. However, we are also having global confidence today. And that is why the next decade of Indian real estate is going to be phenomenal. And anyone and everyone in real estate who is there for the next one decade can make as much money as Nanda Gi. So please listen to me very carefully. Nandra G I want to be amongst the top I’m currently the bottom 10 income taxpayers of real estate my family is not very happy about it so but the next 10 years next 10 years Nand G and you will agree there are a lot of colleagues from the real estate industry if all of us are in real estate the opportunity to grow in real estate is so high because the industry is going to grow in a mind-boggling manner.

So what am I saying? Today we are at 600 billion dollars of Indian real estate and by 2030 we are expected to be 1 trillion actually we are expected to double that means if you have a business where for example you are having sales of 2,000 crores in next four to 5 years automatically that developer will have sales of 4,000 crores. If you are a consulting agency who has a fees of $10 million, you’re going to be at $20 million because the market itself is growing. But the market is not growing only in metros. And that is where God lies in the next level of detail. But the next decade is going to be phenomenal because we are also going to become among the top three economies of the world. But within real estate, our real estate market is going to double in the next four to five years. But here is what I’m going to say that in 2047 Vixit Bharat developed India as per the target set by our honorable prime minister of India our real estate GDP itself is going to be more than the GDP of the country which is there today and if an economy has to be developed you will all agree with me how many of you have traveled abroad Singapore Dubai London US Canada can I have a raise of hands please because I want to ask a question. So a lot of us all of us have traveled when we go to the airport when we take a taxi and we come out of the airport the first thing what is it that we see.

Can I have one of these lights a little or maybe if I can see the audience please if you can have the lights on because I think they can see that. Yeah this is fine. So what I’m trying to say is what happens when we go to a foreign country. The first thing that we see is infrastructure. We see the buildings and when we see the buildings we say wow what a country and that is where you find out it is a developed country and that is why we all like Gura when you come from the airport on the western expos highway that uh Nandi was talking about and that is the role of real estate if we have to become a 7 to8 or 10 trillion economy I don’t know how much we are going to be by 2047 because it is a hypothesis but it means that the economy from today in the next two decades is going to grow by 10 times and all of us who are in real estate should be very fortunate we are in real estate and this is going to be an opportunity a big round of applause for the real estate fraternity congratulations to everybody who’s winning awards but this is time to work hard and make some money like Mr. Nanda made

I’ll tell you why Mr. Mr. Nandanda made money. He made money when he got into real estate when it was very unorganized and there were very few professionals in real estate. That is when people like Mr. came organized started organizing real estate, building developers, brought professionalism in the industry and that was the time when the arbitrage was there and the people who came at that point in time when I was doing the mundane banking as a as a banker in City Bank. These people were in real estate organizing an industry and that is where the arbitrage is. So they added tremendous value to the industry and they made money because they added value. Now is the time to add value. All of us are from real estate. Use your minds. Whether it is development, whether it is consulting, whether it is real estate brokerage, are we in tier 2 cities? Are we in tier three cities? How are we using technology? How are we using ARVR? Whatever we are trying to do because the whole country is going to explode in the next 10 to 20 years because if India has to become developed and if we as Indians feel it is going to get developed real estate is going to be the torchbearer and it is a matter of time that real estate will get an industry status and the moment it does the way foreign capital is going to move into the country in real estate is going to be phenomenal and everybody who’s here maybe some of my friends who are chief marketing officers might become chief executive officers and I hope by that point in time Nand I will come and say I’m among the top 10 income taxpayers with one chameleia at least but that is the opportunity

I will quickly take not more than 10 minutes the global capital has already arrived I’m Talking of real data sir ma’am I’m talking of real data we have already achieved around $7 billion of remittances in foreign investments in 2025 a growth of 60% and in quarter 1 yearon-year growth of almost 70%. And why is this happening? It is happening because the global geopolitical environment which is there. I don’t think people are going to invest in Middle East. I don’t think uh foreign funds are going to invest in Pakistan. They’re not going to invest in Sri Lanka. They are not going to invest in Bangladesh. They’re not going to invest in Russia. They’re not going to invest in Ukraine. They are not going to invest in Europe. There is no population there. And if there are opportunities, the opportunities are in the BRICS country and Africa. And I want each one of us as a real estate community to come together, put our minds together, grow our businesses, grow our industries, and take this opportunity to make the most of it. Because this 6.7 billion is the number China actually talks about how much 20 to 30 times more. And if there is an opportunity for any country to reach the scale of China which is the actual superpower rather than without naming countries there is this opportunity and where is this 67 billion going to go. So that is the opportunity it is like what banking was in 1980s real estate is what it is in 2025 2026 onwards.

India’s premium tier. I want to give you some data. We have almost 1.65 million 1.65 lakh millionaire dollar millionaires in India now which are recorded. Other than this data I want to give some data because there are a lot of people from Gura luxury real estate who are here doing branded residences. You know the growth of real estate in India for real estate luxury residential projects last year was 40% for projects which are offering units of 10 cr or more. They have almost grown by 50%. the sales of projects sold for 10 crores or more where branded residences of course are playing a very big role especially in the north. India is now amongst the top 10 markets of branded residences in the world and Gura is the frontr runner in branded residences.

Another aspect that I want to say is we are almost selling around 500,000 homes. plus minus whatever 10 15%. Mangalore may indoor plan. All of you should be part of this growth story in the tier 2 cities. It is very important because the it is for the first time in the last two years. I want to tell everybody that the growth of luxury real estate has been more than the growth of affordable housing. It doesn’t mean affordable housing is selling less. It is not growing as fast. And there is not everything that is good in real estate. So I am not here as a spokesman of real estate industry who come to talk about only good things. I’m going to talk about what the challenges are because if we don’t look at those challenges then this dream of five to six uh trillion by 2047 might remain a dream but the growth right now has been great the prices are increasing it is not a good sign the way prices are increasing and I will come back to it the prices are increasing because of two things the land prices have gone up very high and the approval costs have become very high and and and and there are certain areas which need to be worked around and we will figure out what I’m going to try and discuss. The biggest thing is we have 2,000 GCC’s global capability centers of the world today work in India.

Last year office absorption was around 85 million square ft. We are on the verge of reaching 100 million square ft of office absorption. What this GCC does is a J GCC is a talented workforce. That means their knowledge centers are here now. It is not a call center. And now these GCC’s are opening in tier 2 cities also because they’ve realized that you are getting good talent especially after co the cost of real estate is less. And because GCC’s offer employment, residential follows employment and that is where the growth is going to come. This 2,000 GCC’s are going to become around 2500 GCC’s in the next two to three years which is 500 more GCC’s getting established which is the opportunity for employment and I will come to certain other things that we need but the office market in India is very very robust despite a falling dollar despite capital markets for the last three years not growing despite people not making money in the capital markets market etc etc etc. Our office market office leasing market is very strong which means the employment is there. We have challenges on the technology side. People are losing jobs on technology side. Markets like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Punea, Chennai are under a little stress because most of the home buyers are technology but given the entire thing there are so many GCCs that are opening that should compensate for this tech thing. And obviously in the technology side our engineers now need to understand that they need to be better skilled and if they become better skilled the upside of any challenge is the opportunity. The person who is getting a job for 30,000 50,000 in technology after two years the same person will get a job for two lakhs because he’s better skilled and he’s in AI. So that’s the opportunity because these 500 more offices coming in they have to come in tier 2 cities because there is going to be not much space. What is tier 2 city? If they will not come in Bangalore sorry if they don’t come in Gura let me take a gura example they will go to Manisurand gi man and this entire stretch of Japur to Gura will build like the entire stretch of Mumbai Punea will build the entire stretch of Ahmedabad Mumbai will build the entire stretch of Bangalore Mysore will build because these are all highways because India is getting connected beautifully by infrastructure dams, bridges, airports, highways.

So that is the opportunity and the REIT story. We have five REITs. Everybody understands REIT. There are five listed REITs with a market cap of 1.7 lakh crores around 177 million square ft already done. And a REIT gives a better return than a debt fund. It gives you a 5 to 6% yield. Plus it gives you a 5% annual rental increase basis which all the tenants are there. So this is going to be another pillar. Capital flow is one pillar. GCC is another pillar. Luxury real estate is the third pillar. And the fourth pillar is reached. We already have we already have five rates. We have an theme rate which has already been allowed. There are going to be small small offices which are under theme category which will get into REIT and that is where foreign inflow will come. The I’m part I’m a member of ease of doing business for CI and one of the most important directives there is that we have to create an environment where we are able to attract foreign uh resources. Are we the best on ease of doing business? No. But we will have to become best. And now with whatever is happening with the US and the Trump scenario, I think that is again going to be a challenge that we will convert into an opportunity where we will strengthen our internal systems, make it ease of doing business and one day because in the next 12 to 24 months I think we are going to see lots and lots of reforms. Lots and lots of reforms. Read this five number can be a 20 number by 2030. And you can imagine this two lakh cr can become 6 to 7 lakh crores of market cap which is office real estate which is listed on the Indian stock exchanges.

Last pillar is our regulatory mode. It is RAR that has played a great part. People say what has RAR done? I only say one thing. The growth of real estate sales in the last four years the home buyer trusted RAR. That is why it bought real estate. And in the last four to five years, I have not seen a major incident where a developer promised that the delivery will come and was rarer certified that the delivery has not been made. It might be delayed by 6 months, one year, but the rarer mode, the regulator mode has really won. And this will become one of the most important things going forward because if we want capital flows to come in India globally our regulatory system, our transparency, our compliance, our ease of doing business all has to be top class international level and that is why this is the fifth pillar and this will again play a very big role. So these are the five things but as I said everything is not hunky dory. What are the challenges that we have? Number one challenge is there is a problem of affordable housing. There are 1 cr affordable housing required. None of the developers are right now focusing on affordable housing because they can’t. The price of land has gone up so much. And if you’re doing business, unless and until there is a public private partnership that comes in affordable housing, you have uh [clears throat] metro housing, you have corridor housing, you have public private partnerships where there are zones, satellite cities which are focused on affordable housing. This is going to remain a challenge and we will have to stop calling it affordable affordable because nobody wants to live in affordable housing. That is why Tata Nano did not do well. We can keep on talking about other reasons. Nobody wanted to be in a car which is actually at the price of a mobike. They could have positioned it. You need value housing. The best example of value housing and for ease affordable housing is Singapore and it is all done by the government and there is huge opportunity. There is huge land. We keep on saying land is not manufactured anymore but I keep on saying there is lot of land and there is enough and more land and that land is in the control of the government. Government is really keen on doing something about it. Pradhan Mantri Aas Yoja Pavi has been one of the most successful affordable housing regulations but in the times to come if we are able to get affordable housing cannot be part of the housing ministry I feel it should be a different ministry which should be affordable housing ministry and that is when you will see a sea change and that is how this 600 billion will become 1.2 trillion and this 1.2 2 trillion will become 5 trillion economy by 2030 by 2047.

Number two, urban housing needed. I have told home prices have gone up too high for the end user. I keep on saying I don’t know who are these buyers in Guro who keep on buying homes for 10 crores, 15 crores, 20 crores, 25 crores, so on and so forth. They are limited. There are people, there are businesses, there are startups, there are founders, there are industrialists. But the average India is not India. It is bhat. It is the emerging middle class. It is the upwardly mobile. It are those husband and wife both working with one child. So on and so forth. Somewhere pricing will have to be gotten under control. And that is where satellite cities. I think the infrastructure connectivity is there. But this is a very big challenge because we have to understand we have to be inclusive and we have to ensure that everybody has a home and it is a societal responsibility that everybody has a home and that is where the public private partnership has to come in so that affordability is taken under control and this is the third challenge which is there. Urban housing is less affordable housing is not growing. There are challenges. Prices have gone up very high and [laughter] there are certain instances where the EMI to income ratio is also in danger. It might not be everywhere but there are certain places where households are paying around 50% EMI. That is called debt service coverage ratio. No bank gives you loan beyond 2 is to1. Maybe this might be an issue coming up. But these are very very important problems. I have spoken about the glamorous things but once if we want to grow we have to ensure that we as a society the government industry bodies they work together veteran professionals work together and we try and figure out and and bodies like confederation of Indian industry really play a big role and we are trying that we get some solution to this and I’m very hopeful that we will last but Not the least as I said the five pillars of Indian real estate that are going to give you growth are global capital GCC leasing regulatory mode the luxury housing mode and the REIT scale which is new office leasing these are the five I’m kind of simplifying this conversation it is not that complicated it is residential it is office it is money it is regulator and it is trust regulator These are strong indicators that the real estate market has to grow. It is not theory. It is what is happening on the ground. But coming back again, what are the things we need to take care because when growth comes, there is fragility. branded where I come from, I’m now more in Bangalore, people are very simple. Uh because we are in a fragile environment. because risk mitigation. We are in a fragile environment. There are four five things we should take care of. We should ensure our governance standards are very high. Ease of doing business is good. So that we are attract we are able to attract global capital 8 to 10 times and all the global capital will come to all of us to the entire real estate fraternity of India to the top seven cities to the tier 2 cities and maybe the emerging tier three cities and I also want to tell you urbanization in India is happening at such a record stage that in the next 10 years 65% of India will be urbanized and what does urbanization mean people from villages will go to tier three tier three will go to tier two tier two will go to sat satellite towns obviously and that’s how urbanization will change the dynamics of this country and that is what happened in China

number two affordability has to be solved transparency has to be there developers have to build global standards again coming to my friend Mr. and DF. Why do we love DF? Because they have created certain standards. Why do we love a prestige? Why do we love a brigade? Why do we love a reality in Mumbai? Why do we love some of the emerging developers? We will. But are we still global standard? The jury is out. We need to create products, quality infrastructure, roads, bridges, airports, everything of high quality global standards. So that when we go to Hong Kong, we don’t feel I wish I was staying in Hong Kong. And why do we like it? Because those infrastructure we feel the product quality we feel the hospitals the hotels the residential the office we feel is the product is far more superior but we are getting there developers who build global brands will definitely do well DF is an example there are a lot of other examples which are there I don’t want to take names

last but not the least a sector that thinks like a global asset class we have to Think like bankers, we have to think like capital goods. We have to think like FMCG. We have to think real estate as an industry which is a global industry and provide for the future. The capital has arrived. The world is watching. The decade is ours. The only question is are we ready to lead or not? Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for your patience. and uh let’s hope that Indian real estate really does very well and all of us work together and grow together. Thank you so much.

Thank you sir. That was the much needed energy that you pumped in in the session. So thank you very much. And uh Mr. Singh request you to be on stage with us because we have a small token of appreciation to be presented to you. So I want Priya Singh to come on stage anchor and producer Times Network. Priya, can we have you on stage, please? So ladies and gentlemen, I hoped uh that you enjoyed this insightful uh you know presentation that has been done by Mr. Shender Singh and a small uh appreciation from our part and this is going to Mr. Singh. Thank you very much sir for joining us here on stage. A big round of applause ladies and gentlemen. Much needed this evening. [music] Thank you sir. Thank you. Much appreciated. banker.