A transformative shift is unfolding in India’s commercial real estate market, as landowners increasingly partner with tenants in build-to-sell (BTS) deals, combining landholding advantages with tenant-driven development demand. This model allows landowners to monetize their plots by co-developing custom-built commercial or industrial facilities tailored to a tenant’s operational needs, then selling the completed asset to institutional investors or REITs for a one-time capital gain. It’s a strategy that blends the best of built-to-suit efficiency with asset monetization, offering faster liquidity and reduced development risk.
The trend is gaining traction in logistics corridors, emerging business zones, and urban peripheries of cities like Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, and NCR, where landowners hold strategic plots near highways, airports, or manufacturing hubs. In these partnerships, tenants—often large corporations or mid-sized enterprises—bring long-term leasing commitments and design requirements, while landowners contribute the site and either self-fund or collaborate with developers to construct the facility. Once the asset is complete and leased, it is sold to yield-seeking investors in a structured exit.
This tenant-aligned build-to-sell model is being accelerated by factors such as high demand for Grade-A commercial space, digitized land records, zoning clarity, and favorable state-level industrial policies. For landowners, it represents a compelling alternative to passive leasing or speculative sales, offering maximum value realization with tenant certainty. As more corporations seek tailor-made infrastructure without ownership burdens, and as developers seek risk-mitigated inventory, build-to-sell partnerships are redefining land as an active, transaction-ready asset class, fueling a new wave of high-performance commercial development across India.
