The latest ICICI Securities report on the real estate sector for 2022 predicts a bright outlook for the residential and business verticals, but it has brought out that the Covid-19 spin-off of Work from Home (WFH) is likely to be a permanent feature.
The recently released report says though not all employees in the corporate sector would work from home as the back-to-office routine is slowly returning to normal, it has found that at least 15% staff would be permanently under the WFH regime.
While the report says some 20% employees would permanently work from office (WFO), it significantly points to a new work culture under which the rest of the 60 to 70% employees may work under a hybrid model with a fusion of WFO and WFH.
Overall, the ICICI Securities Real Estate outlook expects developers to post record sales booking numbers in 2022 led by new launches. It also expects organized developers to post healthy balance sheets.
The report states, “We believe that owing to healthy balance sheets, access to capital and many unlisted and weaker developers being shunted out of the market, the market share of large organized developers is set to grow further in the next 2-3 years.”
Sustained Demand in Residential Housing Sector:
The report predicts demand to sustain in the residential housing sector. It also highlights green shoots which became visible in office leasing, improved office occupancy and recovery in mall consumption to pre-covid levels from October 2021.
Many Developers Preponed Launches in 2021:
After seeing high demand because of strong hiring and salary growth in the IT/ITes sector and less number of Covid cases with an increase in vaccination many developers decided to pre-pone launches from the festive season time of October 2021 to August-September 2021.
The findings are quite similar to the Knight Frank India Report, which predicted capital value growth of 5% in the residential sector and the upswing in office space and warehousing supported by higher demand by IT companies and E-commerce platforms. This report also highlights record sales booking numbers for developers in 2022.
