India Real Estate Monitor

Over 5000 middle class buyers of Noida Extension apartments are in terrible situation. They are the sufferers of the conspiracy of the developers and Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority. Buyers were never told that the land was the subject of the court dispute. Now the buyers are in the dilemma. Either they have to bear the interest on the loans they had taken from the banks or agree to the terms of the builders who are suggesting them to take flats of any other project. The buyers are seeking refund but the buyers says they will deduct the penalty and refund the amount. Also, the banks are not ready to refund them the interest buyers have already paid for the loans taken. This is a double whammy for the buyers as many of them have invested their life time savings to purchase their dream home in Greater Noida.

Bankers have suggested buyers to relocate to a new project of the same builder so that the buyer don’t lose on the interest amount, but this would be completly on the mercy of the builder, they would charge current rates which are high and may not give any discounts. Forget about the lifestyle the buyers were dreaming.

In these circumstances, buyers have no other option but to go to the Supreme Court.  The lawyers are also suggesting buyers to settle down with the builders but some of the lawyers are ready for court.

Those who have invested their hard earned incomes and life-time savings in buying houses should definitely get justice, they deserve it. This mess is created because of the GRIDA and the developers, then why should the buyers suffer.

The developers of projects of Noida Extension will be refunding back money with interest to the buyers. The have also offered to shift buyers to their other projects being launched in the same area.  A bench of Justice G S Singhvi and Justice A K Ganguly has taken into consideration the plea of the people who booked the flats in these housing complexes which were being build by the seven builders. The court has made clear to these builders that they have to refund back the full amount with interest to the buyers.

The builders clarified that the full refund offer was open to all those buyers who had booked flats in housing projects of Sahberi village, where Noida authority had alloted land to builders without completion of the legal and acquisition process. Buyers seeking full refund outside that village will have to bear the cancellation penality as to they have to follow proper rules.

A spokesperson of CREDAI said, inspite of no fault of builders they are also being affected, but have decided to bear the loss and return full money with interest to the buyers. However, the builders are yet to get clear intructions from the greater noida authority on which portion of land comes under Sahberi village, which will take another two weeks. After that, developers will send formal letters to the affected buyers for option of shifting to other projects or full refund with relevent interest.

The Supreme court had upheld the order of Allahabad High Court that had nullified the possession of Greater Noida Authority of land of Greater Noida in Shahberi Village. Also, Supreme Court had imposed a fine of INR 10 lakh on the Greater Noida Authority. The SC said the Greater Noida Authority bought lands from farmers for industrial projects but later they changed the land usage to residential projects which is a complete act of violation of the purpose of the land. The SC’s decision is likely to affect several builders – Amarpali, Ajnara, Mahagun, Supertech and Panchsheel.

On the contrary, Supertech Limited has not launched or sold any project on the land falling in this village. This village is closest to the project Eco Village2 but the current land of this project does not belong to this village. Construction is on for all the 3 projects – Ecovillage-1, Ecovillage-2, Ecovillage-3 in Noida Extn. Thus all the investments are fully safe and project would be completed on time. The Ecovillage housing are affordable with starting price as 9.85 lakhs.

So, Noida Extension’s loss will yield an unexpected gain for other locations such as Noida, Indirapuram, Vaishali, Vasundhara and Raj  Nagar Extension?

Inflation and peaking cost of raw materials have started denting in the balance sheets of the real estate firms here. In spite of bleeding balance sheets and dipping return on investment, the firms here commit that they will give the housing units to the buyers at the booking price only. KC Naik, president, Mangalore chapter of the CREDAI, says there is a boom clause in the agreement with the buyer but he has not used it till now. His firm Mahabaleshwar Promoters and Builders is currently executing two projects of 260 housing units and will inaugurate another two projects soon. “We have been in operation since the past two decades and not even once we have used the boom clause in our favour,” he said.

His idea is to accelerate the completion period of the project when cost of raw materials start going up. All houses are not sold at one go. So the first buyer is the lucky one who will get it at the lowest rate. It goes by INR 100-200 per sq ft subsequently.

The ROI is dipping and builders are losing 10-15 pc on the projects. In the past six months, the prices of sand, cement, steel and flooring tiles have increased from 20 pc to 100 pc. Prices of rough sand, used for construction of slabs, is up from INR 8 per cubic feet to INR 16. Fine sand used for plastering has gone up from INR 9 to INR 18. Adding to the woes is the scarcity of fine sand. Likewise steel is up by INR 33 to INR 40 to INR 45 per kg and cement from INR 250 to INR 310 for a bag of 50 kg. Flooring tiles has also increased from INR 33 to INR 38.

Acron Infra Project, Mumbai-based developing company is building a large residential multiplex at Karvenagar which is in the heart of Pune, a 3-hrs drive from the metropolis of Mumbai. They are building a big, affordable residential complex with a total of 2,800 apts spread over a 24-acres green campus. The Director of Acron Group said the fund for the INR 800-cr project will be raised through internal accruals of the company and bookings.

This residential multplex will be developed in six phases.During the first phase, a total of four 25-storey buildings will be built within 18 months which includes 800 apartments. The two-bedroom apartments with an area of 900 sq ft at the rate of Rs 6,000-7,000 per sq ft will cost about INR 40 lac- Rs 50 lac. The registration and stamp duty will be an additional cost to the buyer. This project will develop eco-friendly apartments targeted at upper middle class home buyers looking for comfortable and affordable housing in the heart of the city and the housing complex will offer all the modern conveniences and amenities such as a clubhouse, swimming pool, jogging park, children’s park and a green surrounding environment.

With two decades of experience in construction, Acron Group brings to the table a wealth of experience, modern techniques, state of the art building materials and institutional knowledge, engineering, management, talent and skill, especially in the area of green building development. Acron group with branches in Bangalore and Goa is an EPC company engaged in real estate development, infrastructure and hotels.

The project has already begun and the apartments will be ready for possession on schedule. “We want our clients to appreciate that housing development happens at Acron Infra in tandem with nature,” Meghnani said.

NEW DELHI: Growing demand for homes in smaller cities of the country is attracting real estate biggies. Cities like Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow , Nagpur, Surat , Vadodara and Visakhapatnam are estimated to add 354 million sq ft of residential development in the coming 03 years.

According to a research, large builders like DLF , Unitech , Parsvnath , Omaxe , Ansals and Emaar MGF have already diversified into these cities. These cities today show huge potential for growth. These cities are attracting the big developers because of their considerable price stability and growth prospects. With economic activity picking up in these cities, there is a growing migration from smaller areas, which has created a shift towards an apartment culture. This shift will foster volumes for larger developers in the future.

Looking at this new demand, banks and financial institutions are also looking towards these cities to bridge the financial saturation gap.The growth prospects in the smaller cities are fascinating huge developers with multi-city existance.

NEW DELHI | BANGALORE: Broker in Bangalore bylane has just opened a stationery shop. He has named it ‘Smart Shop’, borrowing the name from the realty brokerage firm that he ran from the same premises until about two months ago. He switched to retail after his property business hit a rough patch following a slump in home sales. About 03-quarters of his revenues came from sale of apartments, the remaining from renting.

“With home sales dropping, it doesn’t make business sense anymore,” he says. It’s the same story in other big cities. In Mumbai, a mid-size broker has set up a small fast food joint to make ends meet. In Nagpur, a real estater has quit the real estate business and set up an ice-cream parlour. Their worries are not unfounded. While the large and established players in the property business have managed to stay, even during the slump, thousands of smaller players like brokers and agents are being forced to look for other jobs.

It also hit lakhs of people employed with such small outfits – each of which hires 5-15 people.With many brokers closing shops or reducing size, these people are out in the market, looking for jobs in sectors such as retail, banking, insurance and call centres. The real estate industry employs about 10 lakh people across the country, the majority in the unorganised sector.

In the first quarter of 2011, home sales dropped 17 per cent in Mumbai, 14 percent in Bangalore and 15 percent in Hyderabad. According to consultant Jones Lang La-Salle, unsold residential units in projects that are complete or are nearing completion in 6-12 months in Mumbai and Delhi-NCR are as high as 25 percent and 16 percent, respectively. In other big cities, including Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata, the numbers range between 12 percent and 19 percent. Sales in tier-II and tier-III cities are steady, though there is some panic due to the increase in interest rates, which have climbed to about 11 percent from 8.25 percent a year ago.

“For smaller brokers, the impact of the current market factors is a lot more compared to the larger brokers,” says the president of the National Association of Realtors India . “Even for our members – who are fairly well-off – business is down 40 percent compared to 2009-10. But the smaller guys are in trouble and are setting up businesses that move on a daily basis. Many I know have asked their employees to look out” Ravindra Bramhe, chairman of the Maharashtra Property Brokers’ Association, says.

For whatever business is left in the market, there are hundreds of agents in queue. For instance, there are pockets on the Noida Expressway, near large projects, where real estate brokers can be seen sitting inside small tents, under the sweltering sun, waiting for business. Those who can’t afford to set up these tents can be seen on the roadside, running after every car that passes by, with brochures and flyers of projects in hand. Industry refers to them as the broker mandi. “All my friends and colleagues are now looking outside real estate before things get worse,” says Chaudhary. Many have returned to the insurance industry and others have found jobs with small call centres. A few have found employment with retail stores.