To fulfill a dream to own a beach-side home in Goa has just become costlier. In the budget for 2008-09, the state government has increased stamp duty on property from the average 2 percent to varying rates depending on the value of the property.
So while the state will continue to charge 2 percent stamp duty for land valued up to Rs 30 lakh, an additional duty of Rs 90,000 or more will be charged for a property worth between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 50 lakh. Property worth above Rs 50 lakh will be charged a stamp duty of 4 percent, while a 5 percent stamp duty will be levied for property costing more than Rs 1 crore.
State finance minister Mr. Dayanand Narvekar said, “Everyone wants to own a piece of land in Goa, so let them pay more”. Aware of the danger of properties being undervalued to save on stamp duty, the government has also proposed setting up a benchmark for property prices, based on which duty will be charged.
The state has also raised infrastructure tax from Rs 40 per square meter to Rs 50 per square meter for residential constructions and Rs 100 for commercial developments. Meanwhile, buoyed by a 12 percent growth rate with a revenue surplus of Rs 141.41 crore, the state has decided to waive off all loans taken by farmers from the state agricultural department. Goa state government will also write-off the housing loans of farmers taken from the director of panchayats. The state will also offer farmers bank loans up to Rs 5 lakh at 4 percent interest. It has also decided to pay the difference in interest rate to banks.

Rahejas, the real estate major, has challenged the Goa government’s decision to scrap the approved SEZ before the Bombay High Court. A senior company official said, “We have already made it clear that our SEZ was non-polluting and as such has no reason for the government to stop it. We have invested a lot of money on the project”. Further he asked, “We need to know on what ground it was scrapped”.
The company wants the HC to cancel the state government’s order. Company is saying that they were not given a hearing before taking the decision. Here it is necessary to mention that Raheja is the second company to challenge the state government’s decision. In December 2007, pharma giant Cipla had filed two petitions challenging the state’s verbal order to stop construction at the SEZ site. Cipla CEO Amar Lulla had asked, “Despite having all requisite permissions, the state government refused to give us any police protection when we wanted it, but instead have asked us to stop work. How can a government be like this?” The Cipla case is pending in court yet.

Bids have been invited by the Noida Authority To set up nine hotels nears the Taj -Agra expressway. The authority has a plan to set up three 5-star, four 3-star, and two 4-star hotels in this project.
This bid is going to open on April 24 with a reserve price fixed by the authority of 77,000 rupees($1,919) a square meter (10.76 square feet). The plots for five-star hotels have an area of 24,000 sq meter.
As the economic growth and rising salaries of individuals and companies are on the boost, demand for the houses, hotels and offices are expanding as well. The NCR regions of New Delhi such as Noida, Gurgoan, Ghaziabad and Faridabad are expanding as the lower prices are attracting a lot of buyers.
Developers BPTP Ltd won a bid for 95 acres of land for shops and offices at Noida for 50.1 billion rupees earlier this month. They offered to pay 130, 207 rupees a sq meter as compared to the reserve prices set by the Noida Authority of 77,000 Sq Meter. India’s two biggest real estate companies such as DLF Ltd and Unitech Ltd developers announced to build houses along with hotels, shops and malls. DLF are planning to open 75 hotels in India in five years.

On analysis of the growth pattern of Bangalore, we witness a push for developments in the North of Bangalore comprising of Banaswadi, Peenya Industrial estate, Yashwantpur and Yelahanka. The growth shift has been attributed to the development of International airport in Devanahalli. The road from Bellary road to Yelahanka is witnessing rapid residential development. Prices have raised sharply ranging between Rs.3,000-10,000 per square feet for residential and Rs.2,000-7,000 per square feet for commercial purpose. The trend is expected to remain positive in the area with the international airport acting as a catalyst for growth.
The south of Bangalore has been growing due to Electronic City- a hub of IT/ITES offices in the city. Electronic city is located in the outskirts of Bangalore in an area of 332 acres and is home for the IT behemoths including Hewlett Packard, Infosys, Siemens and Wipro. Sarjapur road is another promising area in the south of the city. Jaynagar, J.P Nagar, BTM layout are the areas adjoining to Electronic city which are developed primarily as residential areas. Prices in the South have witnessed an increase in 2007 by approximately 5.6% with prices ranging between Rs.2,800-7,000 per square feet for residential and Rs.3,500-7,000 per square feet for commercial.
East of Bangalore has grown till Whitefield, which is rapidly developing as a commercial area. Though the connectivity to this part is not up to the mark (au courant), initiatives of government are underway in the form of metro rail and improved road connectivity. Kormangala, Indiranagar and Hosur road are the prime areas. Prices in the East have remained stable with price ranging between Rs.2,500-7,700 per square feet for residential and Rs.3,000-8,000 for commercial.
West of Bangalore has predominantly been in the focus of residential development with prime areas being Malleshwaram, Rajaji nagar and Chord Road. Being a residential area, the prices have comparatively been stable hovering between Rs.2,000-6,500 per square feet for residential and Rs.3,000-6,000 per square feet for commercial.

NEW DELHI: Playing on the basic economics of small margins-high volume, realty majors are now adding low-cost residential projects to their portfolio. Omaxe, DLF, Ansal API, Parsvnath, BPTP, et al are setting their eyes on the small and mid-income home buyer segment and lining up projects which will meet the aam aadmi’s need.
Sample this: Omaxe will be investing Rs 5,000 crore to develop low cost or affordable houses in tier II and III cities. “The price of these houses will be around Rs 20 lakh. The time has come for developers to foray into affordable housing segment where the demand is significant,” said Omaxe CMD Rohtas Goel. The company is yet to acquire land for these projects.
BPTP that recently bagged the biggest land deal in Noida, will also be introducing residential projects in Faridabad which will have an `affordable’ price tag of Rs 40-50 lakh. BPTP has a 1,400 acre land bank in Faridabad and says volumes can be created according to the price.
“Once connectivity improves, Faridabad will be a preferred and an affordable destination for home buyers,” said BPTP MD Kabul Chawla. India’s largest real estate developer, DLF has also launched a number of affordable housing projects in different cities that will cater to lower and medium income groups.
Chennai, Bangalore, Indore, Manesar and Cochin are some of the markets where the realtor will come up with residential projects. While a 3 BHK in Chennai will be in the price range of Rs 35-50 lakh, projects in New Gurgaon and Manesar will cost Rs 45 lakh and upwards.

As home sales continuously going downward, real estate developers are changing their strategy and showing more interest in luxury home segment by targeting non-resident Indians and high net worth individuals keen on buying that exclusive villa in India. Such business strategy also seems to be supported by market as demand in the luxury home segment is growing sharply. Sobha Developers, DLF, Kalpataru, Nitesh Estates, Unitech, Omaxe, Royal Palms, Lodha Developers and Marvell Realtors are developing projects in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi Pune, Goa, Bangalore and Kerala, with the price tags of average luxury homes varying between Rs 3 crore and Rs 50 crore.
Mr. Nitesh Shetty, chairman of Nitesh Estates, said, “Our customers typically belong to the top management in various corporate firms while some are overseas Indians”. Mr. Shetty has priced its luxury home products in Goa, Bangalore and Chennai in the range between Rs 5 crore and Rs 8 crore. Like Nitesh Estates, many real estate firms have started marketing their projects in the overseas market by organizing property exhibitions and floating sales offices in the countries like the UK and US and UAE.
The Bangalore-based firm is marketing its projects in the overseas market by hiring sales executives and participating in property exhibitions. While it has been there for some time now, the luxury home segment in India is estimated at Rs 2,000 crore with around 30 million potential buyers.
Such homes are typically located on private roads that are fenced off with an exclusive private gate and state-of-the-art security systems including cameras. The amenities could also include a spa, multi purpose court, climate controlled swimming pool, gymnasium and a business lounge.

Just fort night back we have seen many Indian promoters figured in the worldwide billionaire list. The Sensex’s climb previous year saw the likes of DLF’s KP Singh coming out of nowhere and becoming the third richest Indian for sometime. And there was much rumour as to when, rather than if, Mukesh and Anil Ambani would eclipse Bill Gates.
However, the recent stock market chaos has resulted in an erosion of net worth of India’s wealthy lot, which is just as spectacular as the rise was. In all, the net worth of India’s top 10 promoters is down by 35 percent since the peak in early January.
Indian biggies including Mukesh Ambani, DLF’s Singh and Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel have seen their combined net worth shrink by around $100 billion in the preceding two months.
Topping the list of losers is India’s biggest real estate industrialist KP Singh. His net worth has almost halved to $22.5 billion from a peak of $45 billion in January.
One more real estate baron to lose acutely during this meltdown is R. Chandra of Unitech, whose market cap has halved since this bear phase began. The Hinduja Group too has taken a knock with the market value of its holdings down by nearly 43 percent.
The promoters who have seen maximum wealth erosion are those with business interests in real estate, power and energy.

NEW DELHI: While the bears are ruling the stock market, there is a different asset class where the bulls are keeping away. Speculative investors in real estate market are retreating, at least in the Delhi-NCR region.
Some foremost developers based in the region say it is becoming more and more complicated for them to sell flats at launch stage due to lack of interest from speculators. This reflects on the inherent demand structure in the real estate market.
Developers attribute this to stability in prices as against the past where prices were shooting up on a monthly basis. They add that the difficulty in booking flats may delay projects and reduce their pricing power, “A year ago, if we were selling over 100 flats in a month at launch stage, we now sell only 30-40 per month. Speculators, who would earlier frenetically book flats at the pre-launch stage only, have now disappeared,” said a senior executive of a real estate firm.
Till mid-2007, speculators made quick money by booking multiple flats at the launch of a project and exiting within a few weeks or months. But now, Omaxe executive director Vipin Aggarwal says, “The property prices have stabilised with little scope for speculators to make such big gains in the short term, leading to their retreat.”

SINGAPORE, March 17 – The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said on Monday that it was looking at the introduction of real estate investment trusts (REITs), but this will come only after other financial market liberalisation moves.
“We have got remarks from market players. I would say that in the timetable, that will be later than the stock lending scheme and currency futures,” the stock market regulator’s chairman C. B. Bhave told an investment conference in Singapore via teleconference.
SEBI in December released draft guidelines on setting up REITs in India, which would pave the way for wider participation by retail investors in the country’s booming real estate sector.
Regulators are also mulling over the introduction of currency futures to help investors hedge foreign exchange risks, and a new system for the borrowing and lending of securities.

Unitech and Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd (IBREL) have deferred the listing of their respective real estate investment trusts (REITs) on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) owing to the liquidity crunch in the global markets.
Both Unitech and IBREL have received approval from the SGX for the initial public offers (IPOs) of their trusts.
The move closely follows a similar decision by DLF, India’s largest real estate company, on its property trust.
The companies are now exploring private placements with global finance majors for their expansion plans.
DLF, which had plans to raise nearly Rs 8,000 crore from the listing of its property trust, will now raise nearly Rs 2,000 crore from domestic financial institutions.
Indiabulls’ IPO, scheduled to hit the market mid-March, was expected to mop up $1.2 billion (Rs 4,800-crore), while Indiabulls was to sell 14 per cent of its property trust Indiabulls Properties Investment Trust (IPIT).
IPIT was to acquire One Indiabulls Centre and Elphinstone Mills, developed and owned by Indiabulls at central Mumbai, collectively valued at Rs 8,080 crore.
Unitech was planning to raise Rs 2,800 crore ($700 million) from the Unitech Office Trust, which was to acquire its IT/ITeS properties in Noida, Gurgaon and Kolkata.
Earlier, it planned to raise nearly Rs 8,000 crore from the IPO, which was scaled down to Rs 2,800 crore due to global market volatility.
The company has also put on hold a $1.5 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) qualified institutional placement (QIP) issue planned for the first quarter of 2008.

Vishal Retail is planning to enter real estate sector. Confirming this development Manmohan Aggarwal, CEO, Corporate Affairs, Vishal Retail told Business Standard that the new venture would be launched either in the second half of the current year or early next year.
He revealed that company is also planning to acquire 1 crore sq ft area in next three years which would partly be used for expanding the retail businesses and rest for real estate purposes.
The project is in formulation stage and would take time before it is launched. Meanwhile, Vishal Retail today also announced opening of its 92nd retail store at Pinjore today.
The company aims to open 100 stores in the FY07-08 with new stores in Chandigarh, Mohali and Manimajra.
Having achieved a growth of 100 per cent in the current financial year, Bajaj said that Vishal Retail was looking forward to acquire 25 lakh sq ft area by December 2008 to expand its retail chains. The Vishal Retail at present has 20 lakh sq ft areas in which it operates its different retail operations. The retail operations are spread in 62 cities across India. At present it has 90 hypermarkets and 3 Fashion Marts.

The Yoo Pune project will consist of 33 floors with footprint of around 10,000 square feet. The total land area for the project is 21 acres at Hadapsar, next to Magarpatta, and opposite Amanora townships. The four-five bedroom apartments will measure approximately 5,000 square feet and cost around Rs.7.5 crores each. Penthouses too will be available as part of the project. An estimated at Rs.1,500 crores are being invested in this project, making it one of the costliest in India. If you are looking for both a top quality brand and a prime location, Yoo Pune could be your right choice for investment or for living. Mr.Sagar Chordia, director of Panchshil Realty said, “The Residential service condominiums in collaboration with Yoo by Starck project will be privately owned residential apartments, with hotel facilities. They will be privately owned and independently managed”. Facilities in the Yoo Pune project will include laundry, valet, personalized housekeeping services, clubhouse, and spa. At Yoo Pune, plans are on to rope in companies like Oakwood Resorts and Mariott Hotels to provide services. According to Panchshil Realty, the project will begin in October 2008 and take four years to complete. The Yoo Pune project will be one of the most prestigious projects India has seen to date.

European real estate giant Yoo by Starck expands into Indian real estate market, designing their first project for India, which will be developed by Panchshil Realty. The proposed condominium project will locate in Pune, which is on a few hours drive from Mumbai, India’s commercial and financial capital. In India, luxury projects are high on demand and property buyers and investors interested in branded projects can now enjoy international brands and lifestyle.

MUMBAI, March 13  – Indian developer DLF Ltd may delay a planned initial public offering in Singapore of a real estate investment trust and instead opt for a private placement to raise about $500 million, a source said on Thursday. DLF, India’s most valuable property firm, had planned to raise $1.5 billion from the Singapore listing, but the company had changed track because of large falls in global markets since the plan was announced last year.
DLF was now in talks with a clutch of investors and expected to seal a deal by the end of the month, the source said.
“The markets are so unpredictable now, we may wait till they stabilise before doing an IPO,” said the source, who has knowledge of the deal but did not want to be named.
“We are in touch with five or six investors for a placement, which we will probably finalise by month-end,” he said.
Potential investors include Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and DE Shaw, he said, confirming a report in the Economic Times on Thursday, with DLF seeking to raise 20 billion rupees ($500 million) in private placements for the property trust.
DLF also planned to invest $750 million in the trust, owned by a subsidiary, DLF Assets, the paper said, citing unnamed sources.
The company that handles DLF’s media enquiries declined to comment.
DLF had said in February it was still working on the IPO and expected it to be launched in the second quarter of the year, with regulatory approvals expected within a month.
Volatile markets have seen more than $23 billion in global IPO plans postponed or withdrawn, according to Thomson Financial.
India does not yet allow REITs to be floated, but draft guidelines for them were issued in December by the market regulator.

The government today issued guiding principle on big-ticket transforms to the foreign direct investment (FDI) norms that were decided by the Union Cabinet on January 30.
It, however, remained quiet on clarifying a change in rules for FDI in real estate, maybe due to fear of larger capital inflows.
The move to delink the FDI provisions from investments by foreign institutional investors (FII) in real estate under the portfolio investment scheme was predictable to lead to better stock market play in real estate scrips.
A press note could not be issued. An official told that it is not clear why the Cabinet has not cleared the proposal to de-link FDI and FII norms (in real estate).
Interestingly, on the day the Cabinet met to grant the changes, a plain-paper background note distributed by the government said the Cabinet had approved a explanation that FII investments would be distinct from FDI and be outside the purview of press note 2 (2005).The de-linking conditions were suggested by the DIPP.

Delhi-based Business Parks and Town Planners (BPTP) bagged a 95-acre commercial plot at Sector 94 in Noida for incredible Rs 5006 crore from the Noida authority. It is strategically located close to Delhi. It will be around 16 km from Connaught Place and around 10 km from south Delhi via the DND flyover.
The price per square meter in the deal comes to Rs 1,30,207. The next highest bid for the site was Rs 1,17,000 per square meter by DLF and the third highest was Rs 80,000 per square meter by Omaxe. Ansal Properties and Infrastructure was earlier disqualified in the technical bid. Noida authority declared that the permitted floor area ratio for development of the site will only be two. Only an area of 8.2 million square feet will be allowed to be developed. At this rate, per square feet construction right has cost BPTP Rs 6100.
This deal indicates that there is no sentimental slump in real estate sector. It also indicates that Noida seems to be emerging alternative for office space to Delhi and Gurgaon. At present, office rentals in Delhi’s high class areas range between Rs 200 to Rs 350 per square feet. In Gurgaon, it varies between Rs 80 and Rs 120 per square feet. On the other hand, rentals in Noida are in the range of Rs 40-60 per square feet. This price difference is the main reason behind rise of Noida as an attractive destination for commercial space in NCR.

LONDON:- Survey of 485 real estate investors sees UK capital slump to 15th spot on fears over exposure to financial sector.
Moscow and Istanbul have displaced London and Paris as the top-ranked cities for real estate investment prospects, according to a Price water house Coopers survey published today.
This is the first time in the survey’s five year history that London has not featured in the top two. Paris still makes the top five behind Hamburg and Munich, but London has tumbled to 15th in the rankings from second in 2007.
Moscow and Istanbul also topped the development prospects league table, as survey respondents cited the need to investigate new markets. However, Moscow was ranked the riskiest city in the survey, followed by Athens and Budapest.

Very first green building complex is all set to come up on a sprawling fifty two thousand square meter plot in Borivali. This project is part of the BMC’s upgradation plans for its Civic Training Institute & Research Centre (CTIRC), which is near to the National Park. Mr. P K Das, consultant of the project, said, “It will have all the standard features of Platinum buildings under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system”.
Platinum is the highest rating given under the US building council’s LEED system for green buildings world-over. The CTIRC will borrow elements from existing Platinum buildings in India like the ITC Centre at Gurgaon, Grundfos Pumps Corporate Office at Chennai and the IOC Corporate Office in New Delhi.
The complex will make use of a host of energy conservation techniques for low heat natural lighting in day. Rooms will be fitted with sensors that switch off the lights when there is sufficient natural light or when nobody is in the room. There will also be systems for ground water recharge, rainwater harvesting and use of solar energy. To prevent dangerous emissions internal roads for vehicular traffic will be planned along the periphery of the complex. The existing classrooms and hostels will be modified in energy efficient ways. The BMC has already invited tenders from contractors eager to execute the project.