Talking to reporters here, Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) state president D S Tripathy said the new definitions are vague and will result in the harassment of people while constructing houses.

The draft BDA (planning and building standards) amendment regulations-2012 proposes to amend the definition of apartment as building constructed in one block having more than four dwelling units where land is owned jointly and construction is undertaken by one agency. Under the existing BDA regulations 2008, an apartment is defined as a building having six or more dwelling units.

Tripathy said under the new definition houses of joint families may become apartments. As a result, such families would have to meet the required road width of minimum nine metres, he said. Tripathy said certain apartments can never form societies for which at least seven members are required. Similarly, the new definition of ‘group housing,’ building with more than one dwelling unit, where land is owned jointly and the construction is undertaken jointly by one agency, is vague and don’t convey clarity.

CREDAI, which suggested its comment on the draft regulations, open for public suggestions, is of the view that creation of the new “settlement fund” and earmarking of 10% of all housing projects for economically weaker sections is not going to help the poor. “It seems impractical that BDA will construct EWS houses using shelter fund,” the CREDAI chief said.

The CREDAI, Odisha, suggested that the state government should formulate an affordable housing policy on the lines of Rajasthan, which looks more realistic, gives incentives to builders and subsidy to weaker sections.

Due to rampant construction delays, the expected supply of residential properties announced in early 2009 has not been able to reach the market. Around 500,000 units that were scheduled for possession in key markets by end of 2011 are delayed by another year.

There has been an increase in lateral hiring by corporates. With job scenario improving all over the country, people have more to spend. This has resulted in good investment opportunities, and investor sentiments in the affordable and mid-income segment of Gurgaon’s residential market have improved.

Gurgaon remains promising for office space, and there are good prospects for more major global players setting up operations here in near future. On the whole, this augurs well for the residential property market, more or less assuring relatively healthy absorption of residential space in the times to come. The new infrastructure initiatives being undertaken by the government will also play a crucial role for Gurgaon’s residential and commercial property sectors.

Residential property prices on the upcoming southern peripheral road connecting to National Highway 8 have seen considerable appreciation over the past few months. This location holds great investment potential thanks to enhanced connectivity that NH8 provides to Manesar and Dwarka.

In particular, residential properties along the Dwarka Expressway have attracted interest from the mid-income buyer group. As prices soar in upcoming locations of Gurgaon such as Golf Course Extension, Sectors 70 and Sector 78, buyers have been looking at these alternate locations.

The process of out-of-court settlement is on. If the farmers are paid more, land prices automatically will go up. If there is no out-of-court settlement, land has to be reacquired under the state’s new acquisition policy, which leaves less saleable land with the authority.

Current scenario holds that the Indian developers buy land; obtain clearances from the competent authorities for building and layout plans. The predevelopment clearances needed range from non-agricultural orders by way of government permissions for the proper use, building and floor plans are approved by local municipal or state urban development authorities, no-objection certificates are also to be obtained from state pollution boards, water supply and sewerage authorities, properties and other state and central authorities in order to rule out attendant risks.

But, in practice, these approvals are taken at a much later point of time, and booking and collection of a large chunk of demand from prospective buyers are concluded well before these clearances are obtained. This leaves buyers with no choice but to sign on the standard contract formats, with no right to negotiate. The contracts which the buyer is induced to execute are with loopholes for the developer to get away with.

So far the buyers’ recourse has been to the Consumer Courts. In 2007, The National Commission held that the builders’ practice of collecting money from prospective buyers without obtaining the required permissions amounted to an unfair trade practice and the builder is duty bound to obtain the requisite permissions in the first instance, and thereafter, recover from the buyer. Further it also held that if there is any express promise that the premises would be delivered within a stipulated time-frame, the builder has to bear the escalation costs.

A case in point is that of DLF Park Place in Gurgaon, which was to be constructed in 22 mn sq ft in 13 blocks of 1 floor and completed by fiscal 2010. The delay was caused due to DLF departing from the original project, in getting approvals for 29 floors with the plot area being substantially reduced, in breach of the Haryana Urban Development Act the Haryana Apartment Ownership Act, 1983.

With the change in law, such cases come in scope of the Competition Act. The Apartment owners Association, in this case approached the Competition Commission (CCI) for abuse of dominant market position. The CCI has restrained DLF from cancellation of the allotments and also creating third party rights, and also referred the matter to the Director General – Investigations for further consideration.

In the meanwhile, the builder lobby is trying its best to find the Bill, which requires preregistration with the Regulator before the property can be marketed. The Regulator will scrutinize all advertisements, which are to be mandatorily displayed on the developers’ website.

Photo by raman..exploring myself..

The draft is available on the Edelweiss website. The lead running managers for the issue are Nomura, UBS, Local Investment Bank and Citi.

The prospectus included that Embassy property is looking at pre-IPO placement of around 57 million shares for up to 11.75 billion rupees with certain investors. The retail investors may be offered a 5% discount on the issue price.

Though the time line is not yet been set.

The Indian companies have raised a lot of money through share sales by mid-June of FY10 from 56 issues which is higher than last year, as shown by the data collected by Thomson Reuters.

India has also asked bids to appoint 4 banks for managing a follow-on public offering in state-run Power grid Corp of India.

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The budget had earlier proposed this tax on all under-construction projects. And it is common knowledge that eventually the customers will have to bear the burden and not the developers.

The declination came as no less than a shock to the Urban Development Ministry. Its Minister Mr. S Jaipal Reddy argued with the Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee in the favor of the move in April this year but it could yield no results evidently.

The ultimate sufferers will be the Indian middle class who already has to bear the burden of inflation in almost all other spheres but also dreams of owing a home of their own!

The ceremony was held in the presence of the President and the First lady of the Republic of Indonesia along with many other renowned developers and dignitaries especially flown in from around the world.

The project promoted by the Bearys Group, ‘Lakeside Habitat’ that welcomes you to the city as you drive into it from the airport is the only Indian project to win this award this year. This is not the first time that Lakeside Habitat has won an award; it has been recognized on many previous occasions also.

There were fifty-four projects chosen from across 11 countries to compete for the coveted Prix d’ Excellence award 2010.

The award was received by the Director of Beary’s Group, Mr. Siddique Beary.

Indian Real Estate has once again a reason to rejoice.

Shedding light on the reason for doing so in an otherwise volatile market scenario, Sunderlal, sales head of Sahara’s Real Estate Business revealed that it was part of the company’s long-term business strategy to increase the prices of its projects with effect from next year.

“While the general situation is alarming and most developers are in a mess, we at Sahara Real Estate are slightly better off as because we do not face many of the problems that are being faced by other big players; such as we do not have to pay off any public funding or PE and FI debt. All our lands are mutated and paid for and construction on all our projects is on in full swing. As a result, people continue to buy our properties.

Had we not been selling, or had we too owed debts, we too would have been under the pressure to cut prices,” he said.

Admitting that most developers were walking the razor’s edge due to their pan-India expansions and land-buying spree during the last one and a half year, Sunderlal said the scene has totally changed today.

“It has become extremely difficult for many companies to survive these choppy times and the scene as we see it, may change for the worse, with many players being forced out of the market in another 2 years’ time.”

Stating that he cannot see any player cutting down on the prices of their running projects, he opined that the move would be suicidal. “Those developers who are in deep financial trouble may be forced to cut prices in order to boost demand for housing projects but cutting down prices will be suicidal. The more we reduce, the more confusion there would be regarding the change in the market scenario. People would hold on to buying and expect prices to go down further, forcing the developers to reduce more. That would be a never-ending cycle. And furthermore, how can we reduce prices when the prices of raw materials have not gone down? We will not be able to survive if we do that,” he added.

On the one hand, most of the big names in the real estate industry today are putting up a brave front. This is because they feel nothing will change significantly because of the year-long slowdown in the market that has been brought about due to a meltdown global finance, the US subprime crisis and the crash on the Indian stock market. On the other hand, right from global property consultants to local estate agents, talk about the correction occurring at ground level has led to a reduction in transactions, an increase in lucrative offers and discounts negotiated with those who are ready to deal in this rough weather. Some unusual offers by a few developers have made ripples in the market.

“Parsvnath is proud to strengthen its association with DMRC through the construction of station box at Dhaula Kuan. The project reinforces the confidence of DMRC in our execution capabilities,” company Chairman, Mr Pradeep Jain said in a statement.

As per the contract, Parsvnath would construct a station box in the upcoming Dhaula Kuan station, which would be on the DMRC’s Connaught Place-International Airport route.

The company is already developing shopping malls in 13 metro stations across the city, Jain said. The project is scheduled to be completed within a period of 15 months, the company said.

The capital-based realty firm is currently developing 114 projects, spread over 211.32 million square feet across 51 cities.

“Ernst and Young believes that the market is witnessing a transitory slowdown. However, considering the opportunities present as well as the strong economic fundamental drivers, the outlook for the mid-to-long term is positive,” it said in a report released at a Ficci-organized summit here.

The momentum of the market in the mid-to-long term would be sustained by the emergence of new markets, innovative products, ongoing corporatisation of the sector, integration with global markets, greater transparency and new funding mechanisms, it said.

The real estate sector is set to grow by 100 times in the next ten years as compared with the past 10 years, though profit margin would be less, said Hiranandani Group of Companies Managing Director Niranjan Hiranandani.

“The age of super-profit is over for the real estate sector and developers will have to remain content with low profit margins. If you do not believe in this and keep on waiting, somebody else will take business away from you,” Hiranandani said.

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.

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.