Real Estate 2009

Happy Holidays and a Great New Year Ahead - Realty stocks have been among the worst hit in the ongoing meltdown and a number of them registered losses. Despite so many bad market news, the fact is large-scale real estate investments are unlike a homebuyer looking to own a single property. Investors can move money more seamlessly between countries than an individual and investors also have a different way of calculating the long-term value of a particular property. Therein lies the appeal of investing in property in India.

Individuals look for price when buying a home along with expected appreciation and perceived value based on the location or the surrounding neighborhood. Long-term investors look for capitalization rate, the interplay between how much property costs and how much it can be rented for. Though Bank Shareholders and Equity Investors want less exposure to real estate, there are many growth opportunities in properties ranging from from apartments in Bangalore to office buildings in Shanghai. And some investors are buying aggressively.

While investors from pension funds in London to middle-class property speculators in New York are stung by problems in US residential real estate market, plenty of individual and institutional investors are gobbling up real estate in other sectors. A skyscraper like New York City's iconic Chrysler may not be in a normal investor budget, the timing might be right to follow such leads and make significant investments in certain cities around the world.

As markets change due to economic slowdowns, rapid growth or government policy, the important thing is to keep money in growing sectors. And if things go wrong, its time for the bargain hunter investors and opportunity funds to have their day and hence fortune tellers like Forbes, TIME, Fortune etc. had to recalculate net worth of billionaires, every year.