After joining hands with the Association of Indian Americans in North America (AIANA) for their first international property show at the second ‘Chaalo Gujarat: World Gujarati Conference’ in New Jersey from August 29 to 31, the Gujarat Institute of Housing and Estate Developers (GIHED) is set to pitch Aapnu Amdavad at a two-day property roadshow in Chicago beginning September 6.

“More than 80 realtors from Gujarat — of which nearly 75 are from Ahmedabad — have signed up for the NJ property show. We are in talks with AIANA to help host the Chicago leg as well. But, if they don’t, we are prepared to go it alone,” said GIHED vice-president Suresh Patel.

The NJ and Chicago roadshows will see Amdavadi realtors pitch Brand Amdavad as well as upcoming residential and commercial projects worth over Rs 15,000 crore to nearly 60,000 NRGs.

GIHED has already booked a 100-stall pavilion at Chalo Gujarat to showcase a glitzy Amdavad of tomorrow, replete with mega projects like Gujarat International Financial Tec-City (GIFT), Sabarmati riverfront project, Bus Rapid Transit System, new international airport as well as a 3-D colour laser show and special film. A popular venue in the Gujarati heartland of Michigan has also been firmed up to woo high networth NRGs.

According to Patel, the US hard sell was aimed at marketing Ahmedabad’s attractive, low-cost realty among NRGs who were eyeing better returns in India. “With NRGs increasingly bullish on India, what better way of driving home the Amdavad advantage than a sales pitch right at their doorstep?,” says Patel, who admits that the aggressive US pitch was also a good way of tiding over stagnating domestic sales.

“We have seen a sharp rise in the percentage of Indian clients looking at real estate in London to 12 per cent from four per cent in the last few years,” Raine Countess Spencer, director of Harrods Estate Ltd, recently said on a visit to India.

“London is on top of the list followed by the US and then Malaysia and Thailand. Dubai is passé now,” says Anuj Puri, chairman and country head of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, a real estate consultant.

The National Association of Realtors in the US recently reported a 2 per cent drop in the sales of single family homes in March this year compared with the previous month.

“Most high net worth Indians are taking up this opportunity to buy property abroad. Within the US, Houston, New Jersey and Texas are some of the prime locations,” said Pranay Vakil, chairman of realty firm Knight Frank India.

“It is very difficult to give the numbers at this point, but there has been a rise in interest. With the Reserve Bank of India allowing an individual to make an overseas investment of up to $200 million, more options have been opened up,” said Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director of CB Richard Ellis.

Analysts said London was a preferred location because of India’s historical relationship with the UK. Places in the US are also much sought after because many Indians have their children studying in the US, and they want a home near their children.

Indians are also taking a fancy to European properties. Eric Groux, general manager of French-Real-Estate.com, said, “We arrange for 90 per cent mortgage for our international clients. We already have a list of around 26 clients from India who have expressed interest in buying with us.”

And what’s the price for an apartment in northern France? “Close to Rs 3.6 crore,” Groux said.

Other European companies have also been luring Indians with their villas and apartments. “We have been looking at making our presence felt in India for the last six months,” said Phil Tobin, global manager of Spain-based MRI Overseas Property. The company helps people buy and sell properties in more than 18 countries. It has plans to set up offices in Mumbai and Delhi soon and has set a target of selling 12,000 units in the next three years.

“Real estate prices in Mumbai are so high. I can offer you a small cottage in Egypt with a private beach for around Rs 1 crore,” Tobin said.

“In the US and the UK, there has been a drop in the numbers of new homes being purchased. So, for realty companies there, it makes sense to look at virgin markets such as India,” a real estate analyst said.

Every week, leading mortgage lenders and estate agents publish figures of declining prices, higher number of houses on the market, fewer buyers and smaller numbers of new mortgages being advanced.

Except in several areas of London, property prices all over Britain have recorded at least a two per cent drop in the last year due to the credit crunch.

The slowing of Britain’s property market has led to several individual and institutional investors looking to India and other international hotspots.

India is also seen as an attractive destination due to the Indian government’s recent decision to relax rules for foreign investment in the housing sector.

Several India-specific investment funds have been set up, while British citizens of Indian-origin are increasingly investing in places such as Gujarat, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Pune and Jaipur.

The investors here are also courted by Indian builders and property agents who organise exhibitions in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leicester.

Merrill Lynch consultants have predicted a 700 per cent increase in the Indian property market by 2015.

The 50:50 joint venture, named Akme Rhine River Projects will develop seven projects at Ludhiana, Mohali, Greater Noida and two each in Bangalore and Gurgaon by 2012. The JV is expecting a total sales turnover of Rs 7,000 crore by then.

MPC Synergy Real Estate is a JV between Geneva-based private equity investment fund Synergy Asset Management Fund and MPC Capital, the largest listed fund in Germany with over $ 18.5 billion assets under management.

“The total equity investment by joint venture in all the three phases will be close to Rs 1,000 crore in 50:50 partnership,” Akme Projects Chairman and Manging Director Anil Nanda told reporters here.

“We are looking at a sales turnover of Rs 7,000 crore by 2012 from all the phases,” he added. The JV would develop more than 7,600 apartments and 400 villas in 7 projects, which will be launched in the current fiscal, company’s Chief Operating Officer Sonal Nanda said.

The Ludhiana project was launched today, which will be followed by Mohali and Bangalore in first phase. The JV would develop 1,700 high-end flats, costing about Rs one crore, in first phase with an expected turnover of Rs 1,900 crore.

When asked about the total investment which would be made to develop these seven projects, company’s CMD Anil Nanda said the projects for second and third phases were at still drawing board so it would be difficult to arrive at total cost.

However, he said both the partners were open to put in more equity if required to build these projects.

When the deal goes through, the house will be the magnate’s second property in the tree-lined private avenue near the Royal residence that was home to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Mr. Mittal is close to an agreement with the owner, Noam Gottesman, a 47-year-old Israeli-American financier with a reputation as one of the most formidable traders in the City.

Yesterday, both men were saying nothing about the transaction, but it is predicted the property will change hands for £117 million, achieving a British record. The previous highest price for a residence was reached in March this year when a flat in nearby St James’s Square sold for £115 million.

Mr. Gottesman’s detached residence is next to the Israeli embassy on Palace Green, an extension of Kensington Palace Gardens. The four-storey house has at least five bedroom suites plus extensive servants’ quarters and is described as an institutional neo-Georgian building typical of a type built from the 1920s onwards.

It is being sold furnished and with an art collection. “It is the limited opportunities to acquire such a house as this, the rarity of these houses coming on the market, that makes it so expensive,” a property industry insider said.

The house is thought to be for Mr. Mittal’s son Aditya, 32, the chief financial officer of the world’s largest steel company, Arcelor Mittal. Lakshmi Mittal is the majority owner.

It is believed Aditya wants to be near his father, whose fortune has been estimated at £27.7 billion and who lives in another property in Kensington Palace Gardens. That home was bought for £57 million from the Formula One boss Bernie Eccleston in 2004.

On March 31, TJBC launched a joint venture with Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s strategic investment vehicle, for a specialized integrated real estate development. Days later, in Shanghai, Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SCNED to explore mixed-use property and infrastructure development projects in key Chinese cities. Such tie-ups suggest the housing industries across the world are feeding each other like never before. The Middle East region, which is living through an impressive housing boom of its own, ignores this shift at its peril.

The blistering pace of construction in the Gulf is projected to continue into the foreseeable future, and that has attracted several foreign firms to this part of the world recently. Singapore’s developer, Hayden Properties, has announced the launch of a campaign in Dubai to promote its luxury residences in Singapore. Imagine Homes, a provider of UK property investment, has also launched a Dubai office, opening up more than 500 million dirhams ($136.2 million) worth of UK property to an investment-hungry GCC market.

On the face of it, the industry’s progress here seems detached from the crisis in the US, where bursting housing and credit bubbles threaten to spill over into consumer spending, reducing growth and dragging the country into a deeper recession. But already, the contagion is spreading to Europe, which could then threaten the Gulf region (despite smooth assurances from some of the larger players here). Other factors to watch include the rising cost of raw materials because of growing economies in China, India and Brazil. Such are the drawbacks of hyper connected markets.

One Hong Kong real estate tycoon, Ronnie Chan of Hang Lung Properties, cautioned at a recent Dubai conference that it was “dangerous” to integrate too tightly into the international markets because financial crises are no longer localized. However, cutting off an economy from those global networks is even worse.

The impact of America’s has been felt as far off as India and China. If Europe were to slip into similar chaos, investors from these markets could withdraw Gulf investments to offset their losses. An April 14 New York Times report suggests that financial churning has begun in Asia. “With stock markets down sharply after reaching heady levels, people do not have as much cash to buy property. Sales of apartments in Hong Kong, a normally hyperactive market, have slowed recently, with prices for mass-market flats starting to drop.” With much of Dubai’s property market selling to upscale expat workers, such a scenario here isn’t out of the question. It may only be a matter of time before regional developers and investors become more cautious and slow down the industry.

The company has launched 14 Lifestyle stores in India and plans to increase this number to 35 in next three years. It intends to open 15 Home Centres in an attempt to tap the home decor market.

Kabir Lumba, executive director, Lifestyle International said, “We closed last financial year with Rs 693 crore and aim to treble the turnover in three years. Lifestyle retails a mix of brand and private labels, home space are an exciting area as there are few brands.”

Lumba maintained that, though the negative consumer sentiments have impacted per store growth, it still is in healthy two digit figure. “There is a dip in sales since 4-5 months but it is not as bad as the last year”, he said.

“25 exhibitors will be showcasing their properties of which 18 hail from Mumbai,” MCHI’s President, Pravin Doshi, told reporters here today.

Last year, there were about 40 exhibitors. The less number this year was attributed to the good demand for properties in the domestic market by Doshi. “Because of the good local demand, many exhibitors are not going abroad this year,” he said.

Some of the big names participating in this year’s expo are Hiranandani Constructions, HIRCO, Nirmal Lifestyles, D B Realty, Kohinoor Planet Constructions, the Nahar group and Kalpataru Properties, amongst others.

The financial institution community is also participating in the expo, Doshi said. “Quite a few visitors made firm bookings during the previ us expo. This year’s expo will provide a one-stop solution to all the needs of a NRI to buy a property in India,” Doshi said.

Last year, around 6,000 people visited the expo. “This year too, we expect a good response,” he said. MCHI is now planning holding an expo in London later this year. “We are also planning holding one in Singapore–right now, this is in the planning stage,” Doshi added.