After Affordable housing, it’s Luxurious housing’s turn

Luxurious house in Port Douglas
Photo by Saga A’xeron
After the success of ‘Affordable homes’, realtors are now moving towards the launch of luxurious housing. The demand for luxurious houses indicates that there is big scope for realtors there.

With this increase in demand, many developers including Ansal API, Unitech, DLF, Emaar MGF etc are jumping into this business and plan to launch huge number of housing projects within next six months, where the cost of each single unit will be over Rs. 2 cr.

According to the executive vice-chairman and managing director at Emaar MGF, Shravan Gupta, since the recession period is over and job market is looking up, there are chances of realty boom too.

Within six months, cities like Punjab, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kerala will be overloaded with such projects.

Commonwealth Village: Dream or Nightmare?

As Delhi is gearing up for the Commonwealth Games, all eyes are set on the Commonwealth Village which promises state of the art facilities specially designed to be the home for over 8000 finest athletes of the participating countries.

Clausura Commonwealth Games - 99.JPG
Photo by anselmogz
It is being constructed in partnership between the Emaar MGF and the Delhi Development Authority. It’s being built next to the very famous Akshardham temple with easy access to and from south and central part of the capital. The village consists of 34 towers spread around 27 acres of land that have 1168 flats (2-5BHK) with five star amenities. It is full of plush green lawns, a swimming pool which could host competitions as well and that’s saying something, a world class health club with fully equipped gymnasium, tennis court, basketball court, kid’s crèche, play area and what not.

It was said that after the games are over the village will serve as the hostel for the students of Delhi University. The plan looks on hold as of now.

The approximate prices of the houses eyed by the real estate players are:

2 BHK (1443 sq. ft.) – Rs. 13250/- sq. ft. (Approx. Rs. 1.85 cr onwards)*
3 BHK (2092 sq. ft.) – Rs. 13250/- sq. ft. (Approx. Rs. 2.60 cr onwards)*
4 BHK (2535 sq. ft.) – Rs. 14000/- sq. ft. (Approx. Rs. 3.50 cr onwards) *
5 BHK (3278 sq. ft.) – Rs. 15000/- sq .ft. (Approx. Rs. 4.50 cr onwards)*

*Preferential Location Charges as applicable

But the candy of the eye will be the village going green. The building will be certified ‘Green’. On Saturday the Chief Minister inaugurated a 66/11 kV grid sub-station that will provide uninterrupted power supply. The Rs. 40 cr sub-station has been constructed by the power distribution company, BYPL, in a record time of 13 months.

She expressed confidence that the Commonwealth Games would prove to be a “memorable event and will be able to showcase Delhi as a developed, historical, modern and vibrant city.”

But to all this there is a flip side as well, the Environmentalists claim it’s not a smart thing to build these massive buildings on the banks of the Yamuna. They believe that the village will hamper the flow of groundwater that replenishes the seasonal river, effectively choking it which in turn will increase the shortage of water supply in the city.

Anyways amidst all this the excitement and the speed of preparation for the games the nature has been left to the mercy of gods and the babus. The city people can just sit, pray and watch.

Realty companies are back on track

Emaar MGF, Godrej Properties, Lodha Developers, Sahara Prime City, Nitesh Estates and Sriram Properties will all hit the capital markets in the current year, declaring that the worst may be over for an industry that virtually cratered in the global economic storm last year.

With market conditions still tight, it will be tough for these issuers to demand substantial premium from investors. Looking at the present volatile market, it would be really difficult to predict the premium.

The last to be listed, Mahindra Holidays and Resorts, debuted on BSE 7 percent higher than its issue price. Godrej Properties, the real estate arm of the Godrej Group, plans to sell around 10 percent through its maiden public issue. Before that, the company will place a 3.5 percent equity with select institutions.

The IPO is expected to fetch the company anywhere between 450 crore and 600 crore rupees. It will use the proceeds for building low-cost housing. ICICI Securities and Kotak Mahindra Capital are the merchant bankers to the issue.