Bengaluru, March 31 -- India's real estate boom is sharpening a familiar constraint: capital. As demand consolidates and developers look to scale, the need for formal funding is rising across asset classes.

At a fireside chat on "Returns, risks and exit routes for investments in real estate" at the Mint India Investment Summit 2006 held in Mumbai last week, Vipul Roongta, managing director and chief executive, HDFC Capital Advisors Ltd, and Ankur Gupta, deputy global chief investment officer, head of APAC and Middle East, Real Estate, Brookfield, outlined how this funding gap is shaping investment strategies across housing, offices and hospitality.

For HDFC Capital Advisors, which has funded around 400,000 homes, consolidation in reside...