The Indian realty story is back on the growth path and has weathered the downturn. That’s the view of global real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. “Growing upper middle class pushing residential spaces and in turn prices. Unlike last year, the US and EU have started taking some hard decisions and that is resulting in lot of IT spaces getting filled up or new IT properties coming up. Retail is another Indian industry that is seeing a lot of growth,” said Colin Dyer, President and CEO of Jones Lang LaSalle.

But India has long way to go when it comes to foreign direct investment in the realty space. The reason is not just the strict banking regulations but also the lack of a transparent investment mechanism. Indian realty space witnessed an FDI inflow of about $10 billion in 2007-08 and is expected to remain in the same levels this year too.

“A lot of deregulation needs to happen. An investor needs to know not just how he can bring in the money but also how to take it out,” said Dyer. Globally, Jones Lang LaSalle feels the US real estate market is still weak and signs of recovery are felt only in a few American cities. In some parts of Asia though the outlook is of a slow bubble building up. But in India the realty story is of growth across sectors.

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