Navigating Mumbai's Real Estate: Strategy, Service, and Scale with Rohan Sheth
The success of commercial buildings is rarely accidental. Behind every thriving commercial property lies a complex ecosystem of investors, tenants, developers, and advisors working together to unlock value. In a city like Mumbai, where real estate presents both opportunity and challenge, success is determined not just by location or capital, but by the ability to understand problems and solve them effectively.
The commercial real estate landscape demands strategy, trust, and long-term thinking. Identifying the right tenant and ensuring smooth operations are crucial for protecting and enhancing investor value.
Welcome to Crafting Bharat: Brand Ki Baat – Mumbai Edition, a podcast where we talk about brands, businesses, and the people who build them from the inside out. In this engaging episode, host Kartik Chawla sits down with Rohan Sheth, Founder at Real Estate Advisory Firm Volney, for a conversation on building an investor-focused model in commercial real estate, solving landlord challenges, and the evolving priorities of corporates choosing office spaces.
Rohan Sheth, with nearly a decade and a half of experience in the real estate industry, shares his journey and the inspiration behind Volney. He had worked with developers and real estate companies, but a personal challenge changed his perspective. Owning a small office space at the Trade Center, it took him six to eight months to lease it out. This experience made him realize that if someone from the industry could take this long, it must be even harder for investors who do not fully understand the real estate ecosystem.
That realization led to the idea of creating an investor network model. Instead of approaching the market with just one small office, they decided to approach it collectively. Rohan told other investors that instead of each offering a 1,000-square-foot office individually, they could combine their inventory and represent nearly half a million square feet together. This strategy gradually evolved into Volney, which today manages nearly 2.7 million square feet of commercial real estate across multiple projects in Mumbai.
What differentiates Volney in a highly competitive, brokerage-driven market? Rohan explains that they identified a niche in the ecosystem. Major IPC companies like JLL, CBRE, Knight Frank, and Colliers are well established, and there are countless local brokers. Volney positioned itself as an investor network model, representing landlords and investors while collaborating with both international and domestic brokers. They take responsibility for managing the entire leasing process, acting as wealth managers for real estate assets. Their team is present within the building, overseeing everything from tenant identification to maintenance and tenant requests.
When it comes to selecting office spaces, multinational companies today prioritize employee convenience. They prefer well-connected locations with strong urban ecosystems. Accessibility is crucial, and companies evaluate whether the office is close to railway stations, metro stations, or major roads. They also assess the surrounding infrastructure and safety levels. Extensive EHS (Environment, Health, and Safety) checklists focused on employee well-being are common. Buildings must comply with fire safety standards, emergency protocols, and staff training requirements. Workplace design has also become a major factor, with companies wanting breakout areas, large cafeterias, natural lighting, and spaces where employees genuinely enjoy spending time.
Volney’s long-term vision is to scale and expand institutionally. Over the past five years, they have built a strong portfolio and network within Mumbai’s commercial real estate ecosystem. They aim to grow their managed portfolio from approximately 2.7 million square feet to nearly five million square feet over the next four to five years. Alongside expanding the portfolio, they are strengthening their internal capabilities and expanding their network of investors. In the long term, they aspire to build a highly scalable business and eventually take the company public.
Commercial real estate is a business that, on the face of it, is all about deal-making. However, as the conversation above shows, the true key to success lies in problem-solving for investors, tenants, and businesses alike. From the importance of networking for investors to the value of a service-driven experience for property management, the approach outlined above is a reflection of the way the industry is slowly moving beyond the traditional brokerage-based business model. As the urban environment continues to evolve and corporate needs change, the future of commercial real estate will be driven by those who can balance strategic and operational excellence.
