Tag Archives: Pune

Maharashtra Real Estates

August 2, 2008 – 7:14 am

Maharashtra, also referred to as the ‘Power House of India’, is the industrial hub of India. Commanding the industrial development of the country, Maharashtra has already established a trend in the growth of real estate in India. Economic development has resulted in the rapid development of both residential and commercial property in Mumbai, Solapur, Pune and Nagpur. The demand for Maharashtra real estates is considerably high in Aurangabad and Nashik. Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation has already come up with several industrial townships in different parts of Nagpur, Pune and Dhule.

As per ECA International report, Mumbai ranks seventh among the most expensive cities of the world. Owing to its perpetual hike in the property prices, the demand for real estate has gone up in Mumbai. Increased demand for residential property is one of the reasons for the hike in property cost. Growth of other business centers in India is another reason for such a rise in property prices. To meet the demands of the low-income group, Matheran Realty Pvt Ltd (MRPL) has declared a mega township project in Karjat.

Pune is also witnessing a on-going development in the real estate sector. The soaring land prices is the consequence of the great demand for land. The bonanza in Pune real estate market is promoted by government of India’s decision to grant 100% Foreign Direct Investment in the real estate sector.

The value of real estate is increasing day -by-day in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The real estate property brokers help their clients to evaluate the exact price of the property and sell it at a good rate. They also assist in finding out and purchasing suitable property with uncomplicated agreement terms. All these factors have led to more and more real estate investment.

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IRB Infrastructure Developers Takes Road Building

July 28, 2008 – 7:55 am

Driving on the country’s first expressway connecting Mumbai with Pune is always a pleasure, so much so that people have started shuttling between the two cities daily. All this courtesy the swanky road’s meticulous upkeep by a company that was once a family-owned business doing road-building works for local bodies.
At the helm of it all is Virendra Mhaiskar, 37, who has been able to transform the firm into a modern business enterprise—IRB Infrastructure Developers—that looks after the maintenance of one of India’s showcase projects. IRB, a Rs 784-crore company based out of Mumbai, took the public route this year.
Within five years of his joining the business on completion of civil engineering from a lesser-known college in 1990, Mhaiskar led the company to pioneer the now-famous PPP (public private partnership) model in the road sector, making it the first in India. Mhaiskar said, “The condition of the Thane-Bhiwandi bypass was pathetic in 1995. We convinced the authorities and successfully implemented the PPP model on the stretch making the ride smoother”.
The company was to redo the road in return for toll collection rights over it and this modest beginning led the company to register a profit of Rs 114 crore last fiscal.
What makes the present-day IRB different from the rest in its league? Mhaiskar said, “It is the only company that has integrated its businesses offering multiple services under one roof”. Further he said, “We are into road building, its maintenance and also collecting toll, whereas other firms specialize only in one job like being road contractors or mere developers”. As of today, IRB has orders exceeding Rs 6,500 crore with Rs 3,800 crore worth of work to be completed in 10 months’ time. It collects a toll of over Rs 1.2 crore daily on 800 km of roads from 35 different points and holds the toll collection rights over 7% of the ambitious Golden Quadrilateral project in the Bharuch-Mumbai-Pune stretch.
IRB’s operations can broadly be classified into three verticals—toll roads, road construction and the recently added real estate arm (part of the diversification process on which the company is betting big time). Mhaiskar said, “In toll collection, we have to maintain the roads well, and more importantly, add new infrastructure on it like increasing the lanes, which adds to its value”.
After the PPP project in 1995, the other big thrust, which helped the company, was the setting up of the National Highways Authority of India in 2000 due to which the size of projects grew. Mhaiskar further declared, “Earlier, Rs 100 crore projects were unheard of in road building but due to NHAI, we could eye such lucrative deals, which also resulted in capacity expansion”.
Turning the Rs 10-crore firm into a professionally-run enterprise was not easy, says Mhaiskar, who promoted IRB Infrastructure Limited in 1998 to fund the group’s various initiatives. Family members, who were having minority stakes in the company, had to be convinced. He said, “It was an evolving process and I was successful in making them believe that there was value in the company. Their confidence was further strengthened as some private equity players showed interest in us”.
Today, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, which collectively invested over $60 million in 2007, own 10.24 % stake in the holding company. The next step was to go public and at a time when the IPO market was sluggish.
The issue in February this year was oversubscribed four times over. Mhaiskar claims that IRB has been successful in outbidding formidable competitors like Larsen and Tourbo, Gammon India and Reliance Energy in landing lucrative road projects in Maharashtra and Gujarat: “Our edge is in offering all the necessary services in-house, like putting up the asset, its operation and maintenance and investing in it for expansion”.
He said that Looking beyond India, IRB is considering a foray into toll collection for some important highways in Europe and South East Asia and is in talks for the same with various entities. The company is also betting big on real estate, investing Rs 200 crore in a residential-cum-commercial township spread over 1,400 acres located off the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

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Hike In Property Price Of Kolkata

June 13, 2008 – 12:16 am

Property prices in and around Calcutta could shoot up by as much as 15 % as city developers contemplate a basket hike in product prices to combat a steep rise in input costs. The real rise in realty rates, though, could be tempered by a slack market.

According to Pradeep Sureka“There’s no way we can absorb the entire burden of escalation in the cost of steel and cement, the two basic raw materials in real estate construction. We are in dialogue with our members and prices for new properties are set to be revised upwards soon,”.

Cement prices have gone up 20 %, while steel is dearer by 40 %, followed by the recent hike in petroleum products, to push builders into a corner since they are forced to absorb the 20-25 % rise in construction costs in pre-sold projects.

However, given the demand slowdown in an inflation-hit market, increased interest rates and the specter of dearer home loans, real estate developers could find it difficult to go for a one-shot rack rate hike.

“Yes, builders might be forced to spread the hike across installments, given the cautious consumer mindset,” felt Pradip Chopra of the PS Group, former secretary of Credai Bengal.

Members of Credai Bengal are scheduled to meet next week to discuss the sale price hike of upcoming properties. Builders in Bangalore and Pune have already announced a rack rate increase, while Mumbai is set to follow suit on 16th june.

Sureka feels the prices of new flats in city core areas would go up by five to seven per cent while in suburbs, where construction cost is often 80-90 % of the project cost, thanks to cheaper land, property prices could soar even 10-15 %.

“Prices are bound to go up, sooner than later, and the LIG and MIG segments would be the worst-hit,” agrees Chopra. He feels there would be a scramble for price correction in new projects and unsold stocks as developers rush to recover losses incurred on pre-sold products with no escalation clause.

Not just cement, steel and oil, but rising labour and contractor fees plus transportation cost have also contributed to the difficult situation, points out Piyush Bhagat of the Space Group. The city realty firm has already announced a 12 % rise in the sale price of a housing project in Belur.

“The quantum of hike has to be left to individual companies, because the profile of the product and the location all matter,” says the Credai Bengal president whose company, the Sureka Group, has announced an upward revision of Rs 100 per square foot in two of its Rajarhat projects.

Around 2,500 flats are being built in city core areas and 6,000-7,000 in the suburbs.

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Indian Company Plans IT Park In Lanka

June 12, 2008 – 2:19 am

City-based real estate developer PS Group is setting up an IT park in Sri Lanka with an investment of $80.4 million.
The company has entered into a joint venture with Sri Lanka Institute of Technology and Infinity Parks Ltd, another city-based real estate company, to develop this project.
Mr. Pradip Chopra, chairman and managing director of PS Group, said, “This is our first international project and we feel there are lots of such opportunities in neighboring countries. This IT park project will provide direct and indirect employment to 20000 and 80000, respectively”. Read More »

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Sobha Looks Forward For Slum Redevelopment

June 4, 2008 – 2:57 am

Sobha Developers, a Bangalore-based realty major focussed on residential space, is looking at diversifying its portfolio through slum redevelopment schemes and special economic zones (SEZs), retail and commercial projects.

Mr. Raghav Menon, Executive director, said that the company would build an SEZ in either Tamil Nadu or Kerala. He said, “We haven’t decided on the place yet. We will also enter retail and commercial project development”. Read More »

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Realty Deals Get Buried In Pan-India Landslide

June 3, 2008 – 12:53 am

Over the last two years, land prices have shown a northward trend. Now, it’s time now for a realty check.

Record land auction at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex- like the Rs 46,000 per square feet buy by Wadhwa Builders in November 2007 are passe. The last auction at BKC, by Jet Airways, has seen rates tumbling to Rs 32000, a drop of a whopping 30% in just about four months. Read More »

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Will Property Price Come Down In The Near Future?

May 26, 2008 – 6:19 am

Many expect a further correction in home prices in India. Since the volumes of property transactions are going down, hence the asking price for property will also go down. Additionally, over-supply of property is posing as a major reason for the slow down in Real Estate prices.Recent media reports have also suggested the same trend. Reports suggest that Real Estate Prices in Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, and National Capital Region have corrected 15-20% in the first quarter of this year. Market-watchers say that this trend will be repeated across the Tier II cities and suburbs too. No wonder property developers are wooing prospective users with all sorts of offers. Some are even offering lower EMIs for flats while some are offering goodies like cars along with property. Still others are wavering off the stamp duty prices.
Are the property prices coming down in your area? Is the property slow down really impacting the end user in a major way? Should the home seekers cheer for some reasons? Is there a possibility of a market dive? Or is this a temporary phase in the housing segment?

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Realty Is Facing Prices Fall

May 12, 2008 – 5:41 am

The transaction level has gone down drastically in various markets. It has resulted in price fall in realty market. This is also because residential capital values in some micro markets in the metros have shown a negative growth in the last 3 months. After tracking capital values in metros such as Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore as well as Pune and the National Capital Region (NCR), the result was that either there has been a fall in prices of residential values or they have not increased in the last three months. In fact, places like Gurgaon have seen a down of 15 percent, while the plot rates have come down by 20 percent in Noida. In Greater Noida, the plots which were selling at Rs 55000 to 60000 are now available for Rs 40,000 to Rs 45,000. In Indirapuram, rates of flats have come down to Rs 2500 to Rs 2700 per square feet from Rs 3000 to Rs 3200 per square feet. Read More »

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DLF Plans Multiplexes In Different Part Of Country

April 28, 2008 – 7:44 am

PropertyWala.com

Chandigarh: DLF, a leading real estate player in the country, plans to invest Rs 1,250 crore for the development of its multiplex business. The company has planned to add minimum 500 screens in the next four to five years across the country.
DLF’s entertainment arm DT Cinemas will set up a megaplex, which will have 12 screens with a total capacity of 2,500, as part of their upcoming project, Mall of India, at Gurgaon.
Expected to be one of the country’s biggest malls, it will cover an area of 40 lakh sq ft.
DT Cinemas announced the opening of their multiplex at DLF Infocity, IT Park, Chandigarh. Infocity covers an area of 1,90,000 sq ft and most of the space has been leased out. The mall will start operating within the next 10-12 days.
Kajal Aijaz, CEO, DT Cinemas, said that with the multiplex offering state-of-the-art facilities like Christie cinema projection system, excellent acoustics, wall-to-wall carpeting, extra legroom with comfortable slideback seating and push back armrests for the audience, they were eyeing about 66 per cent occupancy at the multiplex in the first year.
With DLF planning to set up another 120 malls in different parts of the country, DT Cinemas would be the chief attraction in most of these malls.
Apart from Ludhiana and Jalandhar, where multiplexes would be opened in a couple of years, the company is also opening multiplexes at Savitri-GK2, Shalimar Bagh, Vasant Kunj and Saket in Delhi and Star Mall, Gurgaon, this year, Aijaz said.
DT Cinemas will also set up multiplexes in Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Goa and Kolkata.

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Mahindra’s Jaipur SEZ To Become Partly Operational From July

April 26, 2008 – 8:57 am

The Special Economic Zone being developed by Mahindras at Jaipur will become partly operational in July with first group of clients moving in, a top official said on Friday.

Mr. Arun Nanda, vice-chairman of the company told that Mahindra Lifespace Developers, the real estate and infrastructure development arm of the USD 6 billion Mahindra group, has also started buying land at Karla, near Pune, for an SEZ project.

He said that the company has managed to get a premium of 20 to 40% over the current market rate for some of its residential projects in Mumbai and Faridabad.

He said that the company has an estimated land bank of 35 million square feet across the country and expanding to new places like Nashik and Nagpur.

Mr. Nanda said that earlier people were talking about the long gestation periods faced by the company. But now onwards, the company will see far more accelerated growth. The story is now unfolding. There will be unlocking of profits.

The company has 1.5 million square feet of space under construction at present.

Referring to the SEZs, he said that the company has the distinction of promoting the first successful SEZ in private sector at Chennai, now known as Mahindra World City. The second SEZ at Jaipur is progressing well and the first group of clients, which includes Infosys, will move in in July. It would take couple of more years for the entire SEZ to become operational.

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