Warehousing sectors major investment movers in Q3 2021: Colliers

MUMBAI : The residential and warehousing sectors are likely to see increased investments from investors over the next few quarters.

In Q3 2021, foreign and domestic investors invested in residential projects in cities such as NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai. During the quarter, large, listed developers focused on lowering debt and expanding their portfolios, while launching new projects and acquiring distressed assets.

From Q3 2021 onwards, the residential sector has already seen an uptick in housing sales led by pent-up demand from the last few months, and other factors. To propel demand during the festive season, banks have reduced home loan rates. This will spur demand across several segments. Meanwhile, significant demand for affordable housing and growing investments in new projects should increase supply in tier-I markets such as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, National Capital Region, and Bengaluru.

“The third quarter has evinced significant Investor interest, buoyed by ample liquidity and with the easing of travel restrictions has driven significant activity in property markets across Asia-Pacific. In India, residential sector has performed very well with record sales across markets helping developers to deleverage and acquire new opportunities,” said Piyush Gupta, Managing Director, Capital Markets and Investments Services, Colliers India.

During Jan-September 2021, industrial and warehousing assets attracted investments of about $900 million from investors.

Leasing in warehouses in anticipation of the ongoing festive season and the continued demand from e-commerce companies, are making warehousing assets attractive to investors. Land acquisitions of about 35-50 acres occurred primarily on the outskirts of tier-II cities, such as Pune, Indore, Kochi, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Emerging asset classes such as data centres and life sciences are gaining traction. During Q3 2021, Ivanhoé Cambridge and Lighthouse Canton invested $100 million in the life sciences R&D facilities in Hyderabad, in a first of its kind investments by a foreign investor in life sciences.

During Jan-September 2021, data centres saw investments of about $235 million, with corporates tying up with global data centre providers.

Demand for data centres in India is growing. Colliers expects total colocation data centre stock to reach 20 million sq. ft by 2023, led by local and global data centre developers, from 9.5 million sq. ft at present.