In an interaction with Adlin Pertishya Jebaraj, Correspondent of Finance Outlook India, Devang Doshi, CFO, Duville Estates, discussed how the recent rise in construction prices, demand volatility, and fluctuations in interest rates have impacted where companies allocate capital, plan profitably, and how they structure their debt-to-equity matrix for projects similar to Riverdale.  

With over 19 years of experience in all areas of real estate finance, governance, and strategic leadership, Devang is an expert in financial planning, project funding, valuation, compliance and risk management of large-scale developments such as Riverdale micro-township and future projects.  

How are current real estate market trends of rising construction costs, demand variability, and interest rate cycles shaping the CFO’s approach to capital allocation and profitability planning? 

Over the past year, the sector has been operating in an environment where material inflation has remained consistently elevated. Steel and cement prices have risen in high single-digit percentages on average over the past year, as highlighted by assessments from CARE Ratings and CEIC.  

Even in fundamentally strong micro-markets like Kharadi where the 31-acre Riverdale Township has helped create a resilient end-user base, booking patterns today are far more sensitive to the nuances of design efficiency, layout planning, and total cost of ownership. Interest rates have remained stable because of the RBI’s pause stance, but sentiment still reacts visibly to even a 25-basis-point shift, which is also reflected in the RBI’s 2024 Monetary Policy Report.  

In this backdrop, the capital allocation philosophy has become more calibrated. Following a tightly sequenced deployment model that aligns capital outflow with construction progress and real-time sales traction. For a multi-phase development like Riverdale, this discipline ensures that each cluster remains financially self-sustaining.  

Strengthening procurement cycles and expanding the use of predictable construction systems like aluminium formwork have also been important, as they bring stability to both timelines and cost structures. Today, profitability planning is less about margin expansion and more about eliminating variability, preserving liquidity, and ensuring that every phase moves with financial precision. 

What does an ideal MIS architecture for real estate look like, and how should it integrate financial, project, sales, and procurement data for real-time decision-making? 

For real estate development, especially at township scale, an integrated MIS is not a good-to-have; it is foundational to financial oversight. In a development of multiple towers, customer groups, and construction stages operate simultaneously, making fragmented data a recipe for operational risk.  

An effective MIS must bring together engineering progress, customer collections, procurement exposures, and sales behaviour into a single, coherent view. This becomes particularly relevant in a cost environment where material inflation, as noted by CBRE’s India Market Monitor 2024, demands sharper forecasting. With an integrated MIS, we can observe construction-to-collection alignment in real time, track rate variances across key materials, and detect shifts in booking patterns as they occur.  

For higher-specification products such as Riverdale Grand, where the sequencing of work and finish-level precision is more sensitive, and MIS insights play an even more meaningful role in pacing decisions. The key advantage is that decisions that once required multiple reconciliations and long lead times can now be made within hours. It strengthens both agility and governance. 

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How do you structure debt vs equity to optimize the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) in today’s funding environment? 

In today’s funding environment, optimising WACC is fundamentally about resilience. As reflected in ICRA’s 2024 sector outlook, developers who maintain moderate leverage and avoid short-tenure, high-cost borrowing tend to navigate fluctuations far more effectively.  

For a long-horizon township like Riverdale, each phase has its own financial rhythm, and aligning external borrowing strictly with construction milestones has allowed us to maintain predictable utilisation and avoid unnecessary interest drag. Internal accruals are deployed into phases where market validation is strong, such as the early traction seen for premium offerings, as it reduces reliance on external funding while keeping the capital structure flexible.  

The objective is not to aggressively minimize debt, but to maintain a balance that protects liquidity, supports consistent construction progress, and creates an elastic WACC profile that remains stable across market cycles. 

What KPIs do you rely on to assess the financial health of ongoing projects vs. new launches? 

In current developments, the financial health of a phase is judged by how closely physical progress aligns with planned cash inflows. Construction-to-collection alignment, accuracy of cost-to-complete forecasts, and margin stability provide clarity on whether a project is tracking its financial blueprint.  

New launches are governed by a completely different set of indicators. The first 60 to 90 days are critical, and booking momentum, pricing acceptance, and conversion efficiency become the primary signals of market readiness. Knight Frank’s India Real Estate Report 2024 notes that in strong micromarkets, a significant share of annual residential sales can materialise in the first quarter postlaunch often running into several tens of percent of expected yearly volumes, and this has been consistent with our observations in Kharadi as well.  

In multi-phase townships, these insights help determine how to pace subsequent launches, how we can plan inventory releases, and how to refine our product mix. Premium clusters such as Riverdale Grand also exhibit distinct behavioural patterns, with design sensitivity, views, and configuration playing a much larger role. Continuous MIS-driven monitoring allows us to anticipate these shades early and align the strategies accordingly. 

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What is your future financial vision for integrating sustainability and green finance with project economics and investor expectations? 

Sustainability today is increasingly shaping how projects are financed, valued, and absorbed. According to CBRE’s 2024 Green Buildings Report, green-certified residential developments tend to achieve a meaningful absorption premium, often in the mid to high single digits, along with lower lifecycle operating costs. The RBI’s 2024 Trend and Progress Report further underscores the growing momentum of sustainable financing instruments, signaling the direction in which institutional capital is moving. 

The long-range master planning allows sustainability to be integrated holistically through orientation-led design, responsible construction practices, energy-efficient systems, and open-space planning that enhances thermal comfort. Offerings such as Riverdale Grand naturally benefit from these design choices, particularly in terms of ventilation, daylight access, and overall climate performance, and have been awarded the Five Star GEM Green Energy Management certification. 

From a financial standpoint, I believe sustainability will increasingly influence cost of capital, investor confidence, and risk benchmarks. The long-term direction is to embed sustainability at the blueprint stage so that it strengthens project economics, enhances resident well-being, and aligns with the evolving expectations of both homebuyers and financial institutions.