Mumbai, Dec 9 (FN Agency) While 2021 was mostly impacted by the volatility due to the pandemic, 2022 may prove to be a more stable year for the real estate sector both for commercial as well as the residential sector, International Property Consultant Knight Frank India said on Thursday. Portfolio optimization and hybrid working are expected to be the dominant themes going forward driven by incremental demand from IT/ITes firms and the rebound of flexible office operators, the consultant said in its ‘2022 Outlook Report’. For the residential sector further demand revival is expected with strong end-user interest aided by government impetus and incentives by developers ensuring buoyancy while the warehousing segment that has been risk averse during the pandemic will maintain the growth run rate driven by demand from the e-commerce and 3PL players, it said.
Residential segment to witness around five per cent capital value growth in 2022 as many of the supply and demand-side factors, assessed over the last decade, have started putting upward pressure on house prices, it observed. The top 5 IT companies’ incremental demand for office space based on robust hiring in the last 18 months is estimated at 11.67 mn sq ft, spread out over the next one to two years. Co-working sector will benefit as the pandemic reinforces the need for agility like never before. Agility, a keyword associated with the co-working sector, will drive the demand rebound for flexible office spaces despite the return of normalcy.
“The real estate sector recorded a smart recovery despite the pandemic exigencies in 2021 with segments like residential outperforming others. The disruption caused by the pandemic is slowly settling and the real estate market is expected to gain back its rhythm in the next two to three quarters, provided, the threats of the new variant are adequately contained with minimum disruption in the early part of the new year. The real estate sector will see adequate recovery to match or indeed cross the pre- pandemic levels,” Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director at Knight Frank India, said.