Author Archives: Loknath Das

What Are The Biggest Opportunities In Real Estate Right Now?

When considering the depth and breadth of the real estate industry there are myriad opportunities that could be included from realtors, appraisers, inspectors and attorneys to architects, general contractors and tradespeople to all things supporting home ownership like insurance agents, home improvement stores and their staff. In fact, according to the NAHB, housing accounts for 15-18% of the nation’s economy Read More


Real estate review: Why home sales in Kolkata haven’t taken off

  Branded players see upswing but smaller developers are still struggling Home sales in Kolkata have been a mixed bag over the first nine months of 2019. While branded real estate developers have seen an upswing of sorts and improvement in sentiment, smaller players and standalone projects are yet to gain any sales momentum. Project launches continue to be on Read More


Technology industry seeing improved gender diversity

BENGALURU: A sharp rise in enrollment of women coders for the fifth edition of Tech-Gig’s Geek Goddess clearly shows that the technology industry is seeing improved gender diversity, said Ram Awasthi, Vice President, Technology, Times Internet. The fifth edition of the coding challenge for women saw 73,000 registrations from nearly 39,000 in the first edition. “Biggest change is that we started from Read More


Is the government’s bailout package for real estate enough to revive the sector?

Such in line with the announcements made by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in September, the cabinet on November 7 approved a Rs 25,000 crore special window to provide funding to stalled housing projects in a bid to revive the sector. According to the government, as many as 1,600 projects with 458,000 dwelling units will be covered under this. While Read More


Voice assistant technology is in danger of trying to be too human

More than 200m homes now have a smart speaker providing voice-controlled access to the internet, according to one global estimate. Add this to the talking virtual assistants installed on many smartphones, not to mention kitchen appliances and cars, and that’s a lot of Alexas and Siris. Because talking is a fundamental part of being human, it is tempting to think Read More


Govt to launch real estate e-commerce platform in Jan: Hardeep Singh Puri

To ease the process of buying a house, the government will soon launch an e-commerce platform, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced at the first National RERA Conclave held in Lucknow on November 4. “We’ve held discussions with both Credai and Naredco, and we will soon come up with an e-commerce portal for the real estate sector, possibly Read More


Indiabulls Real Estate arm sells 100% stake in Century for £200 mn

Decides to focus only on Mumbai and NCR markets Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd (IREL) on Saturday said its wholly-owned subsidiary has divested its entire stake in Century Ltd, which indirectly owns London-based Hanover Square property, to Clivedale Overseas Ltd, an entity owned by the promoters of IBREL for £200 million. In April, the company in a presentation said that it Read More


China’s real estate e-platform Fangdd makes Nasdaq Debut

  NEW YORK — Fangdd Network Group, a leading Chinese online property technology company, listed its initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq Global Market on Friday under the ticker symbol DUO. The deal size of the IPO contained 6 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) at a price of 13 U.S. dollars apiece, each representing 25 Class A ordinary shares, Read More


Trulia founder Pete Flint backs real estate startup Modus

The founders of Seattle-based Modus cold-emailed Pete Flint, the founder of Trulia and a current managing partner at the venture capital firm NFX, for months, to no avail. In a last-ditch effort, Alex Day, Jai Sim and Abbas Guvenilir sent one more message to the investor whose real estate listings tool sold to Zillow in 2014 for $3.5 billion. They were at a coffee shop Read More


Real estate sector attracts private equity worth $3.8 billion in first 3 quarters

The investments were led by Blackstone, Hines, Ascendas, and Brookefield With investments led by Blackstone, Hines, Ascendas, and Brookefield, cash-starved Indian real estate sector has attracted close to $3.8 billion in private equity (PE) from January-September 2019. This is a 19 per cent rise year-on-year (YoY). “During the first nine months, a total inflows equalled over $3.2 billion in the Read More