As COVID cases are now declining globally, barring China, work from office is expected to make a comeback. This will also likely lead to an uptick in demand for commercial real estate spaces.
IMichael Holland, CEO, Embassy REIT, said that India is a good market for the office sector. He expects April to see a surge in work from office.
Holland said, “India is in a very good place with regard to the office sector. Because of that, global captive and international shift towards technology, that isn’t stopping anytime soon. You are seeing reports from international and domestic players in the technology space of record quarters, of record hiring, that’s going to keep feeding through into the office sector, so we remain confident on that.”
He added, “We expect next week, beginning of April, there will be another surge in the number of people back in the office, and that will stimulate demand further.”
Holland remains confident on the demand front and expects it to come up in the remaining fiscal.
He said, “We see strong demand coming over the balance of this year and going forward.”
He highlighted that the company has 33 million square feet of completed assets, 10 percent of which are vacant. He further mentioned that the company has announced 4.5 lakh square feet of fresh leasing.
He said, “Our occupancy today is about 87 percent of the portfolio. So spread across the country, we have got 33 million square feet of completed assets, just over 10 percent of that is currently vacant. We have got a strong pipeline going forward. Last quarter, we announced 450,000 square feet of new leasing. We see that trend continuing and accelerating.”
On hotel business, he said that it took 3 weeks to recover. Holland said, “In our hotel portfolio, we saw that it took three weeks to recover after this recent second wave, whereas it took three months to recover after the first wave. So the recovery is very quick.”