Indian Property News on 'June, 2008'

Actis buys Vaishnavi Project Stake

Bangalore-based real estate developer Vaishnavi Infrastructures has received an investment of $25 million from private equity investor Actis for its Rs 350 crore Bangalore project, an investment bank official said.

The proceeds of the investment will fund the construction and development of approximately 925,000 square feet of high-end residential and retail space at Yeshwantpur, a Bangalore suburb. Read More »

Realtors Parsvnath to Expand into Retail

Real estate major Parsvnath Developers Ltd is looking for expansion into retail business, the company chairman said here Friday. “Retail is going to be the next focus area for the company. By the end of this financial year, we will have 5-10 retail stores operational,” Pradeep Jain, chairman of Parsvnath Developers, told reporters here.

“Initially, we will come up with retail stores in Delhi and Mumbai, followed by other cities. We are already looking for partners for our retail venture,” Jain added. Read More »

Star, Era Group in talks for Multiplex Biz

Star TV and engineering and construction major Era Group are reportedly in talks to enter into the multiplex management business.

Era will see the construction and management of multiplex properties while Star will lend its name, says a PTI report. Read More »

Builders Pull out of Hotel Ventures as Profits Dry up

Leading property developers are pulling out of proposed deals with hospitality majors, including Royal Orchid Hotels and Ramada Worldwide, as cash flows in the real estate sector are slowing. Realtors are reconsidering plans to enter the hospitality sector, according to sources.

Real estate developers with presence in National Capital Region (NCR), Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, among others, are opting out of four and five-star hotel projects. According to sources, a five-star hotel in Pune shelved its plans recently as its developer pulled out of the commitment. Read More »

Old Havelis, Palaces making way for Apartment Complexes

Regarded as the most ancient living city in the world, Varanasi evokes exotic and spiritual feelings. The fact that the city is a maze of narrow lanes and bylanes makes the real estate sector follow its own typical pattern.

The traditional mindset of the people here has resulted in only the properties in established and old areas witnessing a surge in prices. Buyers are still reluctant to move to new areas. “People do not prefer to invest in new areas that are being developed due to the age-old mindset of the people,” said VN Singh a prominent property developer and investor. Read More »

Kolkata stays Hot Amidst cooling Realty prices

The real-estate market in Kolkata has been largely unaffected by the soaring inflation and the US economic crisis, developers and experts say. While the sales and price figures in other metros and cities have shown signs of cooling down, the prices in Kolkata have increased by 7-10 per cent over the last four months.

In their opinion, the city has managed to avoid a crisis because prices here had never reached ‘unrealistic’ proportions. Kolkata’s real-estate market is also relatively stabilisedsince the number of speculative investors here is much less compared with end-users. Read More »

Land on Samrala Road fetches Rs 8.38 Crore

More than 100 bidders from Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Chennai take part in auction. The live example of property boom was seen today in the auction of the Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) where the highest bid of a shop-cum-office (SCO) fetched Rs 2.75 lakh per square yard against the reserve price of Rs 1.10 lakh per square yard. The booth measuring 305.25 square yard, which is in Sector 32 on the Samrala Road, was sold off at Rs 8.38 crore.

This SCO has been purchased by Deepak Land and Developers, a city-based real estate dealer. The GLADA had planned to auction more than 40 sites but after looking at the huge response they got from today’s auction, they have put the auction of the remaining sites on hold. Read More »

Real Estate firms want a Regulator

Builders and real estate developers are not averse to the idea of a regulator in the real estate sector.

Confederation of Real Estate Developer Association of India (Credai) president Kumar Gera said that developers want a regulator to discourage the unscrupulous players from entering the sector.

He said that Credai has made a number of representations to the government in this regard. He said that the real estate development industry is fragmented and there is no pre-qualification, resulting into entry of fly by night operators in the sector. Read More »

Sarovar to Sign 8-Hotel Deal with Phoenix JV

After its five-hotel deal with Vipul Hospitality late last year, Sarovar Hotels & Resorts is now in the process of finalizing a brand new eight-hotel deal with the JV Company of Phoenix Hospitality and Entertainment World Developers (EWDPL).

The eight hotels, says Sarovar Hotels & Resorts executive director Ajay Bakaya, will be set up at tier-II locations of Raipur, Udaipur, Nanded, Jabalpur, Chandigarh, Indore, Ujjain and Bhilai. At many of these places, the plan is to have malls-cum-hotels for which development and construction is already underway. Read More »

Mega Realty Deals dot Delhi’s Golf Links

The real estate sector might have hit a rough patch of late, but that has not stopped India’s rich and mighty from striking housing deals in Delhi’s elite areas at fancy prices.

Three low-profile but high-value transactions worth Rs 300 crore have been closed in Central Delhi’s posh Golf Links locality, where infrastructure major GMR, a prominent auto dealer, former prime minister IK Gujral’s son Naresh Gujral and a politician have each bought a house in the past two months. Read More »