Real Estate Shares Touch The Bottom

Current reports show that real estate shares are under heavy pressure of selling. Last Tuesday BSE real estate index was closed at 1,822.14 falling down by 3 %.
Real estate shares fall deeper

Real estate shares fall deeper due to higher interest rates and sluggish real estate market.

Real estate shares are under heavy pressure to sell off mainly because of profit-booking. Real estate investors’ sentiment was all the more hurt by the 7.8 % inflation of September. This was the highest in all the ten months of the year.

The 3% of fall of real estate shares was the highest among all the sectors. The shares of all real estate majors also affected heavily. DLF shares were sold at Rs.208 with a decline of 4.3%. Another real estate major Unitech fell to Rs.25.65 after facing a decline of 4.8 %.

The biggest real estate loser was Anant Raj Industries which dropped by 6.8%. HDIL had the second worst position as it had a drop by 5.7%. Continue reading

Real Estate Giant Unitech Finally Patch Up With Telenor

Uninor Will Be No more.

Uninor Will Be No more.

Unitech, one leading real estate developer with its sign up with Telenor (TEL.OL) a Norwegian telecoms group had stepped into the telecom services in 2008. On the other hand Telenor aims at setting out a new plan to carve a niche for them in the subcontinent.  The Norwegian group also aims at secure a stand ahead to the scandal over the award of operating licenses. Continue reading

Unitech comes up with Gardens Galleria in Noida.

Unitech, one of the India’s leading integrated developers of large-scale real estate projects, has launched Gardens Galleria in Noida. It is part of Unitech’s existing 147 acres entertainment-cum-retail destination in Noida.
Gardens Galleria, designed by US-based firm Callihon, is spread over 8.36 acres, is strategically positioned adjacent to sector -18, Noida and Film City. It is minutes away from ITO, East Delhi, South Delhi, and Noida Expressway. The project is in the midst of established residential areas, offices, colleges and other commercial towers.

The destination already comprises of an international standard themed amusement park Worlds of Wonder and The Great India Place, a shopping mall. The mall, a combination of entertainment, retail and hospitality, in Noida will comprise of hyper market, departmental stores, international shops, spa, gymnasium, banks, ATMs, food and fun joints. The project comprises 230 retail outlets and there is also parking facility for 8,500 cars. Unitech has already got over 10 lakh patrons a month in its three operational malls the Metro Walk in New Delhi, Great India Place in Noida and Gurgaon Central.

Commenting on the launch, Munish Baldev, head-retail of Unitech said, “We are happy to launch Gardens Galleria in Noida. Unitech has already developed 1.3 million sq ft of mall area in New Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon since 2006, and is developing another 4 million sq ft of retail space in cities such as Kochi, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Lucknow, Mohali, Bhopal, Bhub­aneswar, and Dehradun. We have always been bullish about the retail development space and have been developing the shopping malls as per our business plan. We have been getting strong traction from retailers for leasing of the mall-space under development.”

Genesis Luxury, Genesis Lifest­yle, French Connection, Nautica, Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Calvin Klein are among some of the major brands who have their stores in Galleria. The company is also developing another 4 million sq ft of retail space in cities such as Kochi, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Bangalore, Dehradun, Mohali, Lucknow, and Gurgaon in the next 4-5 years.

DLF and Unitech stocks up for mortgage cut.

Real estate developers rallied after newspaper Times of India reported on Tuesday some banks were cutting home loan rates for new borrowers, sparking hope of increased property sales in the country.

DLF and Unitech rose about 1% each on the report, which said that lenders Canara Bank and IDBI Bankhad slashed these rates to attract new borrowers.

The reported moves sparked hopes other rival banks would be forced to match the cuts in the loan rates.

CEOs plan for modest hikes this year

Sobha Ivory, next phase of Sobha Carnation, Kondhwa, Pune 411 048: Elevation
In India, it seems like real estate companies are following a different trend for compensating their top management. During 2009, many company CEOs took massive pay hikes, but now they have chosen to either forego their hikes, or at least take modest ones this year, when the sector is doing much better.

Last year, CEOs of few companies like HDIL’s Sarang Wadhawan and Unitech’s Sanjay Chandra came under scathing criticisms from the media. It is hard to believe that in the recession time period of 2008-2009, Chandra got a raise of about 60% whereas Wadhawan got an increment of a whopping 200%.

However, this year the story is quite different. Wadhwan and Chandra both are somewhere at the same salary levels as previous year, thus Unitech’s MD annually earns Rs 1.71 cr. and Rs 6 crore for HDIL’s Wadhawan.

Other than these CEOs, JC Sharma of Sobha Developers took a 25% increase this year, quite modest one. Also, the MD of Puravankara Projects and Godrej Properties, Mr. Ashish Puravankara, scaled up by about 43% annually.

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.

Happy days are back into realty

Realty industry is all set to be lift up this Diwali. At least 12 public offerings, a slew of new projects and the return of private equity funds that had turned away proposals due to the global slowdown last year.

‘After weathering the worst funds crisis for one and half year, the realty sector has now started seeing inflow of capital and funds,’ said Anuj Puri, the country head of leading global realty brokerage firm Jones Lang LaSalle-Meghraj.

Mr. Puri further said, ‘Sales are improving and private equity funds are coming back. With market sentiments getting bullish, prospects of fund-raising are even brighter. You can now see how every company is taking the QIP route to raise funds,’.

QIP is a tool to raise capital whereby a listed company issues equity shares, fully or partly convertible debentures or securities, instead of warrants, to institutional buyers.

After losing almost 75% of its stock valuation last year, India’s realty sector has raised about $15 billion (Rs.750 billion/Rs.75,000 crore) through routes like QIP in the past six months.

Among the developers who have started mopping up funds over the past few months are the largest player in the industry, DLF Ltd, with $780 million, Unitech with $325 million and Indiabulls Real Estate with $550 million.

2BHK is in trend

The maximum demand currently is for 2BHK residential apartments and finally supply is following demand. Such has been the response that there are developers who claim as much as 55% of their inventories comprise two bedroom units.

According to Atma Sharan, GM-Marketing, Ashiana Housing Ltd, “About 55-60% inventory would be 2BHK. This definitely is the fastest moving segment, particularly among first home buyers.

The 2BHK end user is attracted by the price tag, affordability factor, and lower EMIs. Developers who were primarily focusing on plush housing earlier are including smaller units in a big way in their projects. They are coming up with new initiatives in this line which is expected to attract the young service class people in a big way. So, be it DLF, Unitech or Jaypee, they all have at least 30% inventories as two bedroom units in their projects and plan to increase the percentage with time.

Unitech presents Unihomes

Unitech Developers are now concentrating on Kolkata. They present new stylish affordable residential apartment Unihomes at Kona Expressway Kolkata with lots of modern amenities. Unihomes offers one and two bedroom apartments that are suitable for contemporary urban living. A desirable and contemporary place within the reach of your pocket. Apartments Price is starting at eighteen lakh rupees and above.

DLF to sell more land and wind power business

Debt-ridden realty player DLF said that it will sell more land and wind power business this financial year to raise Rs 1,900 crore and lowered the sales figure for flats.

With a total debt of over fourteen thousand crore rupees to start the year 2009-10, DLF had been doing everything conceivable, including sale of promoters’ equity in the company as also different projects. DLF has sold 2500 flats during 3 months ending June.

Rival Unitech on the other hand has been able to bring down its debt to below Rs 5,000 crore and today it is believed to have some cash surplus.

Both DLF and Unitech shares appreciated by 11.44% and 8.62% to close the day at Rs 330.10 and Rs 70.60 a share respectively.

As part of its management of debt, DLF sold Rs 1,000 crore worth of land during April-June period and is planning to garner 900 crore rupees to part-repay the debt by exiting its wind power business.

Mumbai is the next target for DLF and Unitech

Mumbai seems to be the next destination for realty giants DLF and Unitech. Both companies are trying to restart some of their projects in Mumbai which were on hold.
Unitech, said, “We have a number of slum redevelopment projects in Mumbai. We also have a focus on affordable housing and some projects will be announced by the end of 2009.” A company official said that the focus would now be on residential projects and prices would be lower than the current market rates.