J P Morgan

New Delhi, India: Nearly two dozen US funds are raising $3.5 billion for investments in Indian realty. This is over and above the $2.5 billion invested by overseas realty funds in India to date. Those raising the money include Wall Street powerhouses such as Blackstone Group ( $1 billion) Goldman Sachs ($1 billion), Citigroup Property Investors ($125 million), Morgan Stanley ($70 million) and GE Commercial Finance Real Estate ($63 million).

With experts concurring that India and China are lucrative markets for real estate, a comparison between the two countries is inevitable, writes Ravi Teja Sharma.

India and China are similar in many ways. Rapid GDP growth, huge urbanisation, growth in middle-class spends, a boom in housing, organised retail malls and a growing choice of products.