The combination of specific policy and toughened regulatory reforms in the real estate sector has bolstered the risk appetite of global institutional investors as they increasingly switch from income producing to development assets, Economic Times reports.

The trend clearly indicates their preparedness to participate and assume more risk in Indian real estate given the transparency improvement and their confidence in Indian real estate, the newspaper reports.

Investments in development assets have increased over 7 times to $960 million in the current year till date from $135 million in entire 2017, data from JLL India has shown.

“Transformative regulatory reforms such as GST, demonetisation and RERA along with focus on affordable housing, easing of FDI norms in construction sector, and infrastructure status to affordable housing and warehousing segments have witnessed investors’ confidence returning back in the domestic realty sector,” said Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, JLL India.

In percentage terms, investments in development assets as share of total funds inflow across various real estate asset classes excluding residential segment has seen an 8-fold fold jump to 33% in 2018 year-to-date compared to a mere 4% in 2017.

Development assets include realty projects that are either in under construction phase or undergoing restructuring, as well as greenfield.

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