BSE reports indicate that Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have reduced their investment in real estate companies, particularly Parsvnath Developers and Unitech by 0.8 and 2 percent respectively, year-on-year.

According to shareholding data available on BSE, the domestic financial institutions and banks have increased their inevstment in Unitech Ltd by over 1.5 percentage, while Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have reduced their stake.

In the case of Parsvnath, there were marginal changes in the institutional shareholding (mutual funds/UTI and financial institutions and banks) within the non-promoter category, even as the ‘individual’ holding rose by just less than a percentage point.

“The FII stake in Parsvnath had almost doubled between June 2007 and December 2007, but came down subsequently, in line with market trend,” a market observer said.

In the case of Unitech, the stake held by various mutual funds and UTI stood at 0.51 per cent on June 30, 2008 — a bit higher than 0.25 per cent in 2007.

According to market sources, while FIIs have trimmed their holding in Unitech, the shares sold by them may have been picked up by private Indian insurance firms.

So there is capital in the market that is willing to pick-up whatver real estate equity becomes available. Whether the current Indian Real Estate Stock P/E is good for buying now, is the big question.

Obviously, different people are seeing things differently!