India's Emerging Real Estate Operators: Godrej, Runwal & Hiranandani Scale Institutional Platforms

Institutional investment in Indian real estate is set to cross $10 billion for the first time in 2025 — and a new cohort of platform builders is positioning to capture the flow.

While much of the market's attention remains fixed on India's largest listed residential developers, a parallel story is unfolding among a second tier of institutional operators whose strategic pivot across asset classes is reshaping the competitive landscape. Godrej Properties, Runwal Group, Hiranandani's H Living platform, and Prozone Realty are each executing distinct but convergent strategies: scaling land banks, diversifying into commercial and logistics segments, and restructuring ownership to attract institutional capital.

According to JLL and the Economic Times, institutional investments in Indian real estate are projected to cross $10 billion for the first time in 2025, with domestic capital accounting for 52% of total investments — a structural shift that rewards operators with transparent governance, diversified pipelines, and pan-India reach.

This is the terrain these operators are racing to occupy.

How Is Godrej Properties Executing Its Pan-India Expansion Under Gaurav Pandey?

Godrej Properties (GPL), led by Managing Director and CEO Gaurav Pandey, has emerged as one of the most aggressive land acquirers in Indian real estate. The company has set a booking value target of ₹32,500 crore for FY26, underpinned by a launch pipeline worth ₹40,000 crore, according to Construction Week India and Save Max. Separately, GPL targets a revenue potential of ₹30,000 crore from new land acquisitions in FY26 alone, as reported by NoBrokerage and Godrej Properties disclosures.

The strategy is notable for its geographic and format diversification. In November 2025, GPL acquired a 75-acre land parcel in Nagpur for a plotted residential township, a transaction that pushed the company past its FY26 business development guidance, according to Realty Today and Godrej Properties' own announcement. This move into plotted developments — sometimes described as "horizontal" expansion — represents a deliberate departure from the high-rise urban residential model that has historically defined India's top developers.

Godrej Properties' pivot into plotted developments and commercial office projects signals a platform-level ambition that extends well beyond residential volume. Under Pandey's leadership, GPL is building a diversified development engine that spans premium urban residential, plotted townships in Tier-2 cities, and commercial office assets. It is important to note that GPL's commercial expansion is distinct from Godrej Fund Management (GFM), which operates dedicated logistics and warehousing funds. The plotted and commercial scale-up is squarely a GPL and Gaurav Pandey story.

For institutional investors, GPL's trajectory illustrates a broader thesis: India's most investable developers are no longer defined by residential booking velocity alone, but by their ability to deploy capital across asset classes and geographies with institutional-grade governance.

What Is Driving Runwal Group's Mixed-Use and Commercial Scaling Under Subodh Runwal?

Runwal Group, under the leadership of Subodh Runwal, is executing a dual strategy of urban redevelopment and commercial office expansion that positions the group as one of Mumbai's most consequential mixed-use developers.

In January 2026, Runwal Group secured redevelopment rights for two land parcels in Marine Lines and Bandra West, with a combined gross development value (GDV) exceeding ₹5,000 crore, according to The Economic Times and Ghar.tv. These are among Mumbai's most supply-constrained micro-markets, and the redevelopment model — converting aging housing societies into modern mixed-use complexes — is increasingly recognized as the primary avenue for new urban supply in India's largest city.

On the commercial front, Runwal Group committed ₹4,500 crore over four years (beginning in 2023) to develop 10.5 million square feet of commercial office space, with flagship projects Runwal Commerz and Runwal Edge executing through 2025–2026, as reported by Construction World and Realty Plus.

Runwal's simultaneous push into premium urban redevelopment and large-format commercial office space reflects a platform-building approach that few Mumbai-based developers have attempted at this scale. The group's ability to originate both residential redevelopment and commercial Grade-A supply from a single operational platform makes it an increasingly relevant counterparty for institutional investors seeking diversified urban exposure in Mumbai.

It is worth noting that Runwal's industrial-land strategy currently focuses on transforming legacy industrial parcels into residential and mixed-use projects, rather than building dedicated warehousing or logistics parks — a nuance that matters for investors parsing asset-class exposure.

Priya Hiranandani and H Living: Warehousing, Integrated Townships, and Global Ambition

Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala's platform, H Living, represents a distinctive model within the Indian developer landscape. Operating independently from the Hiranandani Group (led by Niranjan Hiranandani) and the House of Hiranandani (Surendra Hiranandani), H Living explicitly targets investments in warehousing sites and multi-asset integrated townships across India, the UK, and the USA, according to the platform's official website.

This cross-border, cross-asset positioning is rare among Indian real estate operators. While warehousing and logistics have attracted significant institutional capital in India — driven by e-commerce growth and supply-chain formalization — few developer-led platforms have attempted to combine logistics site acquisition with integrated township development under a single investment thesis.

H Living's focus on warehousing and multi-asset townships positions Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala at the intersection of two of India's fastest-growing real estate segments, with the added dimension of international diversification. Specific India project launches in the warehousing segment remain less publicized than the platform's residential ventures, but the strategic intent is clear and differentiated.

For the broader market, H Living's model is a test case for whether Indian developer-operators can build credible cross-border platforms that institutional investors — increasingly seeking Asia-Pacific logistics exposure — will underwrite at scale.

How Is Prozone Realty Restructuring for Institutional Capital Under Nikhil Chaturvedi?

Prozone Realty, associated with Nikhil Chaturvedi, is undergoing a corporate restructuring that could redefine its relevance for institutional capital. In FY2025, Prozone's promoters consolidated their holding by acquiring a 28.83% stake previously held by joint venture partner Nailsfield (a subsidiary of Intu Properties plc), according to Construction Week India and TT&A.

This ownership consolidation is significant. For years, the joint venture structure with a foreign partner created governance complexity that institutional investors found difficult to underwrite. With full promoter control now established, Prozone is positioned to pivot from a pure mall developer toward a mixed-use model — layering residential and commercial components onto its existing mall-anchored land banks.

The retail-to-mixed-use pivot aligns with a broader trend across Indian real estate, where large-format retail assets are being reimagined as integrated developments that combine consumption, living, and work spaces. Prozone's clean ownership structure and existing land holdings in multiple Indian cities offer a platform that, with the right capital and execution, could attract institutional interest in the coming cycle.

Regulatory Tailwinds: Digitization and SM REITs

Two regulatory developments are shaping the operating environment for these platform builders.

The Draft Registration Bill, 2025, currently in public consultation as of June 2025, aims to digitize property registration, enable remote registration — a critical feature for NRI investors — and link records with Aadhaar to reduce fraud and improve transparency. For developers scaling plotted developments and integrated townships in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, digital registration infrastructure could significantly reduce transaction friction and accelerate sales velocity.

Separately, SEBI's amended REIT regulations (SEBI (REIT) Amendment Regulations, 2025), now notified and effective, introduce a framework for Small and Medium REITs (SM REITs) with asset values between ₹50 crore and ₹500 crore, and define common infrastructure such as power and water treatment as permissible assets. This framework creates a potential exit and monetization pathway for mid-scale commercial and logistics assets — precisely the type of assets that operators like Runwal and H Living are developing.

The Investment Trajectory: $20 Billion by 2028

India's real estate investment volumes are projected to reach a record high of $20 billion by 2028, growing at an annual rate of 8% between 2024 and 2028, according to JLL and Integrow AMC. This trajectory, if realized, would double the market from its current institutional threshold and create space for a larger number of operators to achieve institutional scale.

The convergence of domestic capital dominance, regulatory modernization, and cross-asset diversification by a new generation of platform builders suggests that India's real estate market is entering a structural upgrade cycle — not merely a volume expansion. The operators profiled here — Godrej Properties under Gaurav Pandey, Runwal Group under Subodh Runwal, H Living under Priya Hiranandani-Vandrevala, and Prozone Realty under Nikhil Chaturvedi — are each building the kind of diversified, governance-ready platforms that this cycle demands.

GRI Institute continues to track these operators and the broader institutional capital flows shaping India's real estate and infrastructure markets. Cross-asset operational strategy remains a recurring theme at GRI gatherings, where senior leaders from development, investment, and policy converge to map the next phase of the market's evolution.

As the market scales toward $20 billion in annual institutional investment, the question is no longer whether India's real estate sector can absorb institutional capital — but which operators will prove capable of deploying it across asset classes with the discipline and transparency that global investors require.