The transparency level in the county’s real estate sector is now amongst the top ten most improved markets globally and is part of the semi-transparent category at 36th spot out of 94 countries, according to JLL’s 2022 Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI).
Due to digitization and data availability for transaction procedures, in addition to general market dynamics, India’s improvement in transparency score between 2020 and 2022, from 2.82 to 2.73, is higher than some highly transparent markets.
In complement to regulatory initiatives like the Model Tenancy Act, more institutional investment and the rising number of real estate investment trusts (REITs) are supporting the improvement in transparency by expanding market data and bringing more professionalism to the sector.
The National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct, which came into effect in 2021, mandated reporting requirements for the top 1,000 publicly traded companies by market capitalization starting in 2022-23 and local plans such as Mumbai’s Climate Action Plan, released in 2022, which is expected to establish a system to conduct regular energy performance benchmarking of buildings by 2025 and mandate a building energy management system in all new buildings.
A path from rules to implementation is required to boost transparency and meet rising expectations, including financial regulations, land-use planning, taxation, anti-money laundering, and eminent domain.