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Indias improving real estate transparency and accelerating AI and data centre investments could propel the sector onto the global institutional investment stage, but further regulatory, technological and data reforms will be critical to fully capitalise on the opportunity, according to JLL.
JLLs 2026 Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) indicates two-thirds of tracked markets from 88 countries and territories have seen significant improvements in transparency. However, it flagged that the transparency gap between leading and less transparent markets is widening. Asia-Pacific led global improvements in real estate transparency in the 2026 GRETI survey, accounting for half of the 10 most-improved markets. India topped the list, followed by Vietnam, South Korea, Australia and Thailand. India leads a broad-based improvement in Asia Pacific, showing sustained growth by being the 4th most improved over 10 years, and 3rd over 20 years in the GRETI surveys, it noted. The gains in transparency have coincided with a sharp rebound in cross-border investment across Asia-Pacific, with India and Vietnam recording their highest-ever transaction volumes. Further, India attracted USD 8.1 billion in cross-border investment, marking a 20-year high. Against this backdrop, JLL said India stands at a rare inflection point. While the country is the most-improved market in Asia-Pacific and among the five most-improved markets globally over the past two years, several areas still require improvement. The AI and data center wave is not just a tailwind, but the catalyst that can propel India's real estate markets onto the global institutional stage, provided its frameworks scale at the speed of opportunity, it said. As per JLL, Indias land pooling mechanisms aimed at consolidating fragmented private land parcels remain at an early stage, while city-level Master Plans are largely moving through administrative approvals rather than full-scale implementation. At the same time, contract enforcement remains uneven across jurisdictions, with dispute resolution often taking considerable time. Broader scaling of GIS-based digitisation and drone mapping beyond pilot cities is needed to convert planning initiatives into uniformly implemented, measurable outcomes nationwide, the report said. Apart from this, inconsistencies persist in the regulation and reporting of building performance standards, public disclosure of property-level energy consumption, climate risk reporting and planning to strengthen resilience. In terms of technology, adoption across property acquisition and sales processes continues to lag behind more advanced markets, while government engagement with proptech remains uneven. Data availability and depth also vary considerably across Indias secondary cities, leaving gaps that better-resourced markets have addressed more comprehensively. Similarly, the standardised use of data rooms for rent rolls during transactions, CRM-based financial analysis and digitised documentation remains largely concentrated in top-tier gateway cities rather than extending to secondary markets. Tenants formal ability to audit landlord accounts, while improving, also continues to trail more mature markets. Expanding these practices beyond leading metros will be key to converting India's score gains into further rank improvement, given how competitive this parameter already is globally, it noted. (ANI)
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