If Delhi NCR represents North India's love affair with real estate, Hyderabad seems to be doing the same for South India. Both cities are making headlines for record-breaking real estate deals. Real estate remains one of the most visible ways to signal wealth and status in these two cities which are miles apart, yet remarkably similar in their fascination with "trophy" real estate.

India's Grade A office leasing picks up 📈 again. According to Colliers, gross leasing across 7 major cities reached 18.7 million sqft, up 9% YoY and 7% QoQ. - Bengaluru remained the largest market, with 5.2 million sq. ft. leased, broadly flat QoQ and YoY. - Delhi NCR recorded the sharpest increase (⏫106%) among the major markets, more than doubling its leasing volume YoY. - Hyderabad continued to grow (🔼47%) YoY strongly, although leasing fell (🔻42%) QoQ. - Mumbai and Chennai saw YoY declines of 🔻20% and 🔻23%, respectively.

We continue to see more and more reports about housing prices rising 📈 YoY across our major cities. But rarely do we get to hear how our basic civic infra is crumbling and weather conditions are worsening 📉DoD (decade on decade), making our cities increasingly unlivable with time. This decoupling can't continue forever. Or can it?

While Mumbai folks are dreaming of seeing Gurgaon real estate finally getting humbled, but Gurugram seems to be winning the battle against the "erstwhile" king of Indian real estate, Mumbai. Because Gurugram property prices has now already surpassed Mumbai, with staggering 450% 📈 growth since 2020. So now Mumbai real estate has a new challenge... to now compete with Gurugram! After all, Gurugram is already on its way to beat New York, Singapore, Monaco and every other expensive real estate market on the planet. Ab Manhattan door nahi hai... bas NCR ke builders aur unke brokers ko lage rehna hain... continue the bombardments of reels/shorts/posts... with thumbnail "Gurgaon property prices will keep going up".

Project sold out declare karte karte ab builders Tower sold out par aa gaye hain! 😄 The moment top builder declares a project "sold out", others start trying to create their own sold-out headlines too. But perhaps, looking at the market, they are beginning to hesitate a little, while still not quite ready to let go of the "sold out" narrative. So don't be surprised if the next headline reads... "10 Floors Sold Out"! 😄 And now waiting to see what gets declared "sold out" next, until the entire "sold out" narrative itself is finally sold out.

Real estate stocks crashed today on the news of the RBI rate hike! But yes, apparently real estate can never crashes like this and also Indian real estate is supposedly not even that interest-rate sensitive. The irony is that when housing sales are already slowing, even factors that may not have a huge direct impact can push sentiment further down. And when sentiment weakens during a slowdown, buyers postpone purchases, sales slow further, and the slowdown can reinforce itself even more strongly, often resulting in a "gradual" price correction rather than the crash we see in financial markets. Would be interesting to see how things unfold over the coming months.

Hyderabad is now sitting on ~1.42 lakh unsold homes, up 21% YoY. At the same time, every now and then we see headlines about record-breaking land transactions, followed by the familiar narrative that "so housing prices will only keep going up..." So, what exactly are they saying? Housing prices will continue to rise despite increasing unsold homes? BUT is this actually sustainable?

Friend shared this with me last week... ~ 4 lakh per night (before taxes + fees) for stay at some random property in Uttarakhand. And the we wonder why international tourists which are already declining, and if we are charging domestic tourists this excessive premium too, why wouldn't Indians will also simply choose Thailand, Vietnam, Bali or Sri Lanka instead? And this isn't even an isolated phenomenon. Every time a long weekend comes around, prices at the same properties are jacked up 10-20x. Ya, it's a free market but looking at far better alternative tourists destination accessible at fraction of cost, sometimes I wonder... are we actually building a competitive tourism industry, or just trying to extract as much as possible from captive demand?