To make their project affordable, real estate developers are applying new techniques everyday. For example, tunnel form technique, table form technique, fly ash technique and so on.
For instance, Red Fort Capital has developed ‘Fly ash based Cellular Light­weight Concrete, a technology that can help to save up to 10% in the construction cost for high rise structures while using eco-friendly materials. It also helps in faster construction, promoting sustainability and a healthy environment for the occupants.
Mr. G B Singh, director and founding partner, Red Fort Capital, said that it will result in cost reduction up to 15%. There is a tremendous shortage of ‘affordable housing’ in this country. Such steps could greatly benefit the real estate sector.
The use of recycled fly ash, a waste byproduct of coal combustion, is one available route in construction. Other materials that can be effectively used to construct cheap, yet durable houses include hollow concrete blocks, interlocking bricks, stabilized mud-based blocks, rubble filler blocks, concrete door and window frames and funicular (rope-like) shells.
However, despite benefits, the use of such technologies is still not a popular route among developers in India. It may cause inferior structures. Potential buyers will think about the safety, durability and resale value.

NEW DELHI: Global realty brokerage firm, Century 21 Real Estate LLC, announced on Monday about its foray into the Indian market with plans to open offices across the country, where it is expecting for a business of Rs one thousand crores in half a decade.
The US-based company plans to open one thousand offices through franchisee route. It would also have its own offices at fifty locations in the country to manage the entire operations.
Mr. Ajay Rathore, Century 21 India Country Head, said, “In the next five years, we plan to have 1,000 offices at pan-India level. We expect Rs 1 thousand crore revenue after these sub-franchisees get fully functional”. He told that the company would first start with the metros and the Tier I cities, followed by Tier II and III cities.
Mr. Rathore further said, “We will provide services in purchase of office, retail, residential spaces, land and IT parks. We also plan to have rental and leasing services for our customers. He further added, “To maintain transparencies and give best services to the customers, we will have our own offices. We have already set up five company offices in NCR .To manage all the franchisees, we will have about 50 offices in the country”. He also said that the company has already identified Bangalore, Hyderabad , Goa, Chandigarh and Chennai for setting up company offices.
Century 21 has more than eight thousand independently owned and operated broker offices in more than fifty countries and has more than one lakh sales agents across the globe.

Mumbai’s industrial property rents almost doubled last year, rising at the fastest pace in the world.
According to an international report, annual industrial rents in India’s financial capital surged to nearly 80 euros (127 dollar) a square meter.
Global average rents rose by more than 6 %, outpacing the 4.5 % increase in 2006, with Asia showing the biggest gains, boosted by economic growth in India and China.

In Delhi for two small shops of 600 square feet each, shopkeepers now pay something between Rs 1.5 and Rs 2 lakh per month. As par the tenants, there has been an increase of 10-15 percent in the property rates where Metro line is ready, and the landlords say property pries will rise further.
Resident of MG Road Delhi are not sure about rate of property price. They think that this is a temporary sop in an election year (Delhi assembly elections are due later this year). After the election same sealing drive will be started again and all the rise in property price will be lost due sealing. No one will like to buy the property in that area in which after every certain period a sealing drive starts and demolish all the construction.
Some shopkeepers still prefer to pay the increased rents and shifts from MG Road. "I have invested lakhs in furnishing this showroom and if I have to remove all this, my investment would go waste," said Deepankar Chaudhary, who runs a shop selling carpets in MG Road.

Vijay Shanthi Builders, a Chennai-based Housing Promoters, would enter emerging real estate cities with their premium products and building solutions.
Mr. Suresh Jain, Managing Director, VSBL, said that the company would be launching construction of premium grade villas at Salem in Tamil Nadu. Further he added that almost 100 villas will be spread across 20 acres of land and price of each unit will be between Rs 75 lakh and Rs 85 lakhs. Each villa will be comprising 3000 square feet .
It is also coming with a new 40-villa project on 8 acre site at Udaipur in Rajasthan.
The company had acquired 35 acres of land near Matheran in Maharashtra with a plan to construct leisure homes.
VSBL is also on the lookout for suitable sites at Coimbatore and Madurai in Tamil Nadu to develop premium and medium segment housing solutions.
VSBL is in market from three decades. It has completed more than two hundred housing projects in and around Chennai. VSBL plans to construct more than two thousand apartments to attract middle income segments at a price range of Rs 30-32 lakh per unit and the locations would be Sriperumbudur, Madhavaram, Ambattur and Old Mahabalipuram road, all around Chennai.

Growing real estate prices are resulting in a decline in the demand for home loans. The rising interest rate is a additional factor.
Even though Indian realty market is observing a compounding growth, owning a home is still a tough dream for a lot of middle class Indians. Previously (2002-2006), the trouble-free availability of home loans was accelerating the realty growth drive. But, there is now considerable decline in the demand for home loans in India. Main banks have blamed the rising property rates as a cause for this cut. According to the current survey, the prices of furnished and semi-furnished houses in the metros and upcoming metros are becoming sky scrapping day by day.
The increasing real estate prices are not the only factor for this decline. However, the decline has been attributed further to the home loan interest rates that have been increasing incessantly for the earlier couple of months. As per the current details of Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM), rise in these loan rates severely affect the housing sector.
The growth of this sector has droped to 26.6 percent in 2006-07 from 29.1 per cent in 2005-06. The interest rates on home loans rose from 7 percent in 2002 to 12-14 per cent in 2007. This rate has made both lending and borrowing largely unaffordable.

Mumbai Real estate developers on Friday demanded an inquiry into the rise in steel prices and warned that if the prices were unchecked, plans for the Commonwealth Games 2010 would be hindered and would hit the residential construction business. Members of the Builders Association of India (BAI) met here and sought a probe by the directorate general of commercial intelligence wing to ascertain the reasons behind the "unprecedented steel price increase from 2004 till March 2008 and more specifically after the Union Budget 2008?.
Mr. Mahesh Mudda, chairman of BAI, Mumbai, said, "The northbound steel prices will act as a clampdown on the grandiose plans for the Commonwealth Games 2010. Moreover, not many know that CPWD (Central Public Works Department), the key authority involved in the construction work for the games, has not received any bid for two of its tenders floated in the last 10 days".
Mr. Mudda said that at a BAI meet held last week in Delhi representatives of various builders’ associations, including Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Construction Federation of India (CFI), Construction Industry Development Council and National Highway Builders Federation (NHBF), were unanimous that steel firms were "arbitrarily jacking up the prices".
According to most builders, the cause of the "arbitrary control" over steel prices lies "in the fact that there are five steel plants controlling 65 percent of the total steel produced in the country and they have an association called Indian Steel Alliance, through which they control pricing."
Mr. Mudda also pointed out that the construction industry consumes just 33 percent of the total steel produced indigenously.

It is the fact that land price varies with locality but the extent it is varying, is unbelievable. The price of a house at Malad, a Mumbai suburb, is Rs 3000 to 6000 per square feet; whereas, the price of the same at Vasant Vihar (Delhi) is Rs. 19500-32000. It is enough for confusing buyers and sellers.
Not only that the increment in price is also unbelievable. Price of Koramangala in Bangalore was Rs 1,250 per square feet, a single number. In 2008, prices were in the price range of Rs 7000-8000 per square feet. Prices in Park Street in Kolkata moved from Rs 3,500 in 2003 to a wider range of Rs 7,500-10,500. Prices of Worli (Mumbai) moved from the price band of Rs 5,500-10,500 in 2001 to Rs 16,000-40,000 in 2008. Places with wider price band include Alwarpet and Nungambakkam in Chennai, Andheri and Santacruz in Mumbai, Vasant Vihar in Delhi, Koramangala and Bannerghatta in Bangalore, Ballygunge and Park Street in Kolkata and Kalyani Nagar in Pune.
This trend of price variations though seems to be Indian phenomena. In the western world, prices don’t vary as much.

NEW DELHI: The Munjal family, known for the two-wheeler business, is planning for real estate business. After announcing a tie up with the world’s largest commercial vehicle maker Daimler, the company has lined up major plans in the real estate sector that comprise developing residential townships, industrial parks, hotels, resorts and leisure centers all over the country.
According to the group head Brij Mohan Munjal his revenues exceeding $3 billion. “We are working on several projects around the country in the real estate area and plan to enlarge in a big way,” Sunil Kant Munjal, son of Brij Mohan, told TOI.
According to one member of group the initial investments in the real estate venture will come from the Munjal family. It has been observed that potential investors, bankers and private equity players are very much interested in the plan.
A new project of the real estate diversification is coming up around Hero Honda’s new Haridwar factory. Arrow Infrastructure, a new company, will develop township and industrial park around the plant, and this is one of the many projects that are in the pipeline.
Apart from the project at Haridwar, the group is developing an IT park at Gurgaon while looking at resorts development in Himachal Pradesh and residential townships in Punjab.
Elaborating on township plans, one member of the group said the company would provide housing options across price points. “Our idea is to provide mid-level to high-end housing and price points on the lower side could be even less than Rs 20 lakh.”

Russian conglomerate Sistema, on Tuesday declared that it plans to invest $100-200 million in developing hotels, offices and residential complexes in major cities of India. The revelation came after the company’s decision to invest $5 billion in the country’s telecom sector earlier in the year.
Sistema has confirmed an coalition with India Shyam Group, which has divested 51 percent stake in its telecom venture in favor of Sistema. The Sistema-Shyam joint venture will be developing a 22-acre property in Gurgaon ,on the periphery of Delhi. The venture is Sistema’s first undertaking in the construction and real estate market outside Russia and Ukraine.

W J Towell, A leading Oman business group, has announced the formation of joint ventures with three Indian firms for real estate development in the Sultanate.
The Indian companies are Piramal Group, Simplex Infrastructure Ltd and Talati & Panthaky Associated Pvt Ltd.
Mr. Imad Sultan, Director in-charge of Indian ventures of W J Towell, said,”The association with these companies will bring a new level of interest and expertise to the fore in all constructions and real estate activities”.
W J Towell, formed in 1866 and now headed by Hussain Jawad, has been a pioneer in property development in Oman.
Mr. Ajay Piramal, Chairman of Piramal Group, said that we were looking for opportunities in real estate development in Oman, which could include residential and tourism ventures.
Mr. Ivor Braganza, Chief Executive Officer of Talathi & Panthaky, said, “The new alliance will undoubtedly add significant value to the tremendous progress of Towell’s construction and infrastructure projects, to the benefit of all of us within the Sultanate”.
Speaking on the occasion, Indian Ambassador to the Sultanate Anil Wadhwa said that the joint venture of Indian giants with W J Towell in Oman will surely help build and maintain close Indo-Omani relations.

The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority board hiked the minimum rates for all categories of land, in an important decision taken on Tuesday evening.
Residential allotment rates, for instance, have been raised from Rs 5,900 per square meter to Rs 10,500 per square meter.
The group housing land rates have been hiked from Rs 5,900 per square meter to Rs 10,000 per square meter. The minimum rates of industrial land will be Rs 3,000 per square meter, up from Rs 1,400. The minimum commercial rates are up from Rs 12,000 to Rs 20,000. The average rise in the Greater Noida land rates is, therefore, about 60 to 70 percent.
Apart from this, the GNIDA board has also decided to standardise forms for lease deeds of residential, commercial and industrial plots.
GNIDA chairman Lalit Srivastava said that when there are auctions for any land, the minimum price will become the reserve price.

New Delhi :- Property investment division of Citibank has invested one hundred sixty million dollar in real estate major BPTP. earlier Citibank Property Investment (CPI) had invested eighty million dollar in the company to take 5.89 per cent stake. The hottest investment will be made in a special purpose vehicle (SPV) of BPTP, which is executingfour SEZs in the national capital region. According to a source, CPI will acquire 40% stake in the SPV.
The SPV is applying IT specific SEZs at Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad and Gurgaon. The Noida SEZ is being developed on 25 acre of land, Greater Noida on 100 acre, Faridabad on 54 acre and Gurgaon on 27 acre of land. In the first phase, the company will develop six million square feet in the four SEZs by 2010. The total area to be developed in the four SEZs is 20 million square feet.
All four SEZs have got the approval of the government and land has been acquired. The money raised by the SPV will fund the project.
The government rejected to extend the tax benefit for software technology parks after March 31, 2009, IT SEZs have become popular amongst the export oriented units. The developer of SEZ will get tax concessions not only on profit, but also on all inputs required for the project.
The deal reveals that the real estate tale in the country is still shining and the investors are prepared to put money, provided the project is at the implementation stage, said a banker. He said if India maintains an eight per cent growth, it will require enormous real estate supply.

Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) has picked up Rs 60 crore worth preference shares in Mumbai-headquartered real estate major Mantri Realty Limited, which has operations in both Mumbai and Bangalore. Mantri Realty is an associate concern of Mantri Enterprises. The company, which has so far completed over 35 residential and commercial projects with over 3 million square feet built up area across 15 cities, has a land bank of more than 1,400 acre. Mantri Realty will use these funds for developing new projects.
Commenting on the deal, Mr. Sunil Mantri, Chairman, Mantri Realty said, “Having made a mark in real estate sector, we will make a major foray into the infrastructure sector with our power projects. Through our subsidiary Mantri Power Ltd, a 540 MW thermal power plant with an investment of Rs. 2,400 crore would be set up near Nagpur. The plant will be fully functional by 2012 and 60% of the power generated out of the plant will be supplied to the Maharashtra state power utility.”
Mantri Realty has recently launched projects in Bangalore and Hyderabad. The company is also developing 2 SEZs, IT Parks spread over 50 acres and 25 acres of land and one large township spread on 400 acres of land in Nagpur. Mantri Realty client list boasts of several large corporates including Reliance Industries, Tata Steel, Mercedes Benz India Ltd, HDFC bank Ltd, SAIL, NSE and SBI Homes Finance Ltd. The company has tie-ups with major Housing Finance Companies and Banks to devise loan schemes for its various projects.

For prospective real estate buyers in the state capital, thinking big seems to be the guiding light, at least when buying apartments is concerned.
The new concept of one-BHK flats in Ranchi has failed to attract customers, leading developers to shelve many such projects. The “revolutionary” projects were supposed to provide reasonably good accommodation at a reasonable price of Rs 5-7 lakhs. Initial surveys pegged a good demand of these kind of housing, more so when the state capital has of late been witnessing a boom in finance, private banking and the industry sector with company executives expected to buy these temporary accommodations instead of preferring the rented ones.
Mr. C. M. Kapoor, a partner in KV Constructions, said, “We planned to develop as many as 72 one-BHK flats. But as there were few takers, we returned the advance booking amounts. We have shelved the project for now and are instead going for construction of two-BHK and three-BHK flats in our Shalimar Bagh project”.
Experts in real estate business say that as the city still offers residential accommodations at much lower rates than in Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta among others, it could be the reason for people not going for compact accommodation of around 500sqft superbuilt area. They further added,” The square feet rate of residential projects vary between Rs 1,200 and Rs 2,000 depending on the location. But in Mumbai, owning even a one-BHK flat might cost upwards of Rs 20 lakh”.

Real estate industry is passing through the transition phase. This phase will decide the future of real estate. Every day something new is coming to us. Sometimes we get to know new real estate trends and sometimes new way to make the property popular. The recent new trend is that now the real estate will use the names of celebrities along with the name of their property. In foreign countries this trend is going on. It might not be surprising if you get to know about new property as SRK plaza or Rani Mukherjee villa.

People are taking it as propaganda. This may attract big dealers but may not work for middle class, who saves money for purchasing a dream house for their family. If a project involves name of a celebrity, then obviously it will cost more than the project having similar features and no celebrity name involved in it.

GIC Real Estate, the real estate investment division of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, is planning out a bigger game plan for India.
According to industry sources, the firm which runs a multi-billion dollar portfolio of direct and indirect property investments with all most 200 investments in over 30 countries is singling out a intelligent focus to leverage on the growth options that Indian real estate market offers.
GIC is understood to be closing two private equity deals in the present quarter. Additional to this, the company will start looking aggressively at the hospitality sector in the coming future.
To facilitate this, Reco Hotel, an affiliate of GIC Real Estate has formed a joint venture with Host Hotels & Resorts of US to explore investment opportunities in Asia and Australia.
The partners have approved to invest a maximum of $600 million of equity in the joint venture, which combined with the anticipated leverage provides total investment potential of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.
A spokesperson for GIC Real Estate said that there are increasing investment opportunities in both emerging and developed markets to build a substantial portfolio of hospitality-related assets in Asia. According to data from Venture Intelligence, a venture capital research firm in India, close to Three hundred million dollar was invested in hospitality sector over the last year, doubling from the previous year.
Indian hospitality companies like Leela Hotels & Resorts, Lemon Tree besides a few others had earlier absorbed private equity from funds like IDFC and Kotak. Royal Orchid Hotels is another Bangalore-based hospitality player expected to close a six hundred crores private equity deal during this quarter.

Emaar MGF has made a tie-up with Marriott International Inc for the project of hotels in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and a ‘Courtyard by Marriott’ hotel in Amritsar. Emaar MGF has invested $400mn for this project. It will have a total inventory of 912 rooms. Currently, Marriott has tie-ups with real estate players like Raheja and Unitech, among others.
Mr. Shravan Gupta, executive vice chairman and managing director, Emaar MGF Land Limited, said, “This is just the beginning. We are exploring to develop more properties at the same places and others with Marriott”.
The four hotel projects are likely to be completed by 2010 end, with the Amritsar property to come up first.

Hyderabad-based Country club ltd. is now ready to expand its horizon through getting hold of properties in Dubai and Bangkok.
People close to the deal told Business Line that Country Club is in advanced stages of negotiation to buy an existing hotel property in Dubai. The sources said that the price of property will be near about Two Hundred crore. For the same the company may seek loans from local banks for up to Seventy five percent of the cost.
However, when contacted, Mr Y. Rajeev Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director of the company, refused to comment on the development, saying, “We are in an acquisition spree, and that is all I can say at present.”
The company recently mobilised Rs 486 crore through GDR/QIP issue priced at Rs 770 per share. Institutions such as Fidelity Investment, Goldman Sachs and New Vernon picked up 9.88, 6.59 and 4.94 per cent stake respectively. Of the mobilised funds, it has so far spent around One hundred twenty five crore on acquiring properties in various cities in the last couple of months, with the recent one being a three-acre property with a built-up area of 40,000 sq.ft on East Coast Road in Chennai for a consideration of  sixteen crore.
Prior to that, it took over an existing club at Khandivili West in Mumbai for Rs 25 crore. The company is also scheduling to invest another Thirty crore in developing and modernising these properties.

LONDON – India-centralized real estate investment company Ishaan Real Estate Plc. told that it has leased and pre-let 577,000 square feet of office and retail space, growing the total area of leased and pre-let space in its commercial and retail development projects to 2.4 million square feet. Ian Henderson chairman of Ishaan Real Estate Plc. told that they are predicting to make strong progress on construction and leasing activity during the remainder of 2008. The company said around 20 % of the saleable residential space in its first-class residential development project, Vivarea, in central Mumbai city ,has now been pre-sold, also at prices above those expected at the time of admission. Ishaan Real Estate said pre-sales of the apartments commenced at the end of October and are experiencing strong demand.