Latest Property News on 'Delhi'

DLF to Build Rs 15 cr Flat in Delhi’s Posh Locality

Real estate major DLF is coming up with Rs 15 crore flats in the posh Greater Kailash area, courtesy Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), alleges Congress. Leader of Opposition in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi Jai Kishen Sharma has alleged that the civic body has “illegally” allotted the land meant for park and community centre to the DLF. The Bharatiya Janata Party is in power at the Town Hall. Claiming that the civic agency is hand in glove with the ruling party, Sharma said: “In clear violation of the MCD rules, plots measuring 1.5 and 2.5 acres have been allotted for building apartment complex. The land was meant for civic facilities like parks and community centre. This was done to increase the ground coverage of the housing society and give undue benefits to DLF.”

The real estate major is building eight and nine storey apartment buildings in the E and W blocks of the Greater Kailash-II. The building plans were sanctioned in 2007. DLF has already started construction on the plots. Captain KS Singh, a MCD councilor from south Delhi, said: “When the plots were allotted the topography of the area was very different from what it is today. Now, the area is densely populated. So, there should be no construction here as civic infrastructure will crumble if these housing projects come up.” Read More »

Cong and its Supreme Ally Trinamool Battle over Real Estate

Real estate in the Lutyen’s Delhi zone has emerged as the latest bone of contention between the Congress and its biggest ally in the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) — the Trinamool Congress. According to top Trinamool sources, their leader Mamata Banerjee is again angry with the Congress — even before the previous contentious issues could subside — over non-allocation of a preferred bungalow for her party office in the national capital.

Banerjee had zeroed in on bungalow number 14 on Bishamber Dass Marg as the ideal place to house her party office in Delhi. But the House Committee, headed by Congressman J P Aggarwal, ruled out Banerjee’s appeal and allotted the bungalow to a BJP MP. The preferred plot has a type VII bungalow — the second largest of the kind in Lutyen’s Delhi. “I don’t have any vacant bungalow now which can be given to any Trinamool Congress MP to set up their party office. The bungalow in question was already allotted to a senior Lok Sabha MP even before the Trinamool Congress leadership sent its request. Read More »

PE Firm Milestone Capital to raise $250 mn

Private equity (PE) firm Milestone Capital is looking to raise a $250 million (about Rs 1,175 crore) offshore fund independently or jointly with Delhi-based Religare, its existing partner in a fund that invests in the healthcare and education space in India, an industry executive, familiar with the matter, said on conditions of anonymity. The new fund will invest in the US, Europe and the Middle East in education and healthcare sectors. At present, Religare Group and Milestone have a 50:50 joint venture (JV) fund, Religare Milestone, with a corpus of Rs 600 crore. The fund focuses on local companies in tier II and tier III cities in the education and healthcare space. The fund has already invested Rs 25 crore in test preparation firm IMS Learning Resources and is also in talks to invest similar amounts in 2-3 hospitals in the country.

When contacted, both the Milestone and Religare spokespersons declined to comment. The person privy to the development said one of the options for Milestone is to jointly raise the fund with its JV partner. Milestone has already initiated talks with the financial services group promoted by former Ranbaxy owners, Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, to raise this amount, he added. If negotiations with Religare fructify, this would be the second fund under its management catering to the education and healthcare space. Read More »

Office Rentals go Down at Prime Locations in Delhi and Mumbai due to Oversupply

Excess supply has made office rentals in key commercial centres in Mumbai and Delhi come down by half over last year, and realty analysts fear that with business houses waiting for economic activity to pick up speed and a raft of new commercial facilities nearing completion, the rates could head further southwards.

Residential prices have firmed up after the lows they hit late last year, but the recent uptick in macro economic activity is yet to trickle down to sectors such as retail. Realty consultants said in Mumbai there are vacant commercial properties in Malad, Thane, LBS Marg and Andheri MIDC despite the fall in rentals. Rentals have crashed from Rs 400 per sq ft in December last year to around Rs 250 per sq ft now in Mumbai’s commercial hub, the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). Read More »

Emaar MGF Approaches Banks for Restructuring of Debt

The Delhi-based real estate developer, Emaar MGF, has approached banks for a restructuring of its Rs 5,800 crore debt to them. The restructuring may involve a part write-off of the debt. The company recently filed for an initial public offer (IPO), its second attempt at a public float after the first one failed early last year. The company has asked for a write-off of a fifth of the total debt. A clutch of foreign banks lent Rs 3,000 crore, Indian lenders gave the rest. The lenders include State Bank of India (SBI), Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank, ABN Amro Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

The company hopes to raise Rs 3,800 crore through the IPO. Of the amount, a little over Rs 1,770 crore will go into repaying or pre-paying loans. The company has been forced to seek debt restructuring as the foreign lenders, led by Citibank, have threatened to revoke guarantees furnished by Emaar of Dubai, one of the promoters of Emaar MGF. According to some bankers, the Indian company has approached the banks after the Dubai company cited its own financial problems. Read More »

DLF Sells 1,250 flats in Delhi within Two Hours of Launch

DLF, the country’s largest real estate developer, which has launched the second phase of its housing project in the heart of national capital, has sold all the 1,250 apartments within two hours. The company sold all the flats, offered at prices of up to Rs 1.86 crore, though it has raised the selling price of its units by up to 26 per cent compared to the first phase.

“Even with increased price, we have received tremendous response for our product. We initially planned to launch 650 units in the second phase, but due to huge demand we decided to offer more,” said TC Goyal, managing director, DLF. Read More »

Law to Protect Property Takeover

Just registering your property and ensuring that your ownership rights make it to the records of the land-owning agencies like MCD and DDA is not enough to safeguard your right as an owner. To protect your right to the title and to check the growing cases of properties in the capital being targeted for takeovers, an expert team has come up with the first draft of a property titling law. The plan is to set up a central titling authority. It will maintain complete records of all properties and scrutinise the details provided to identify and decide on the real owner. Each property will be issued a unique identification number. A tribunal will be set up for resolving all disputes relating to immovable property in Delhi.

This is expected to prevent fraudulent ownership claims as the records will be available to prove ownership in court. Under the existing system, property ownership details are not available with the authorities concerned. However, real estate observers and sources in the government say getting all records together at one place will be tough and may take many years as there are multiple land-owning agencies in Delhi DDA, MCD, NDMC and gram sabhas. Moreover, the properties in unauthorised colonies are not yet registered. A presentation was made before the Delhi cabinet, led by chief minister Sheila Dikshit, on Monday. After the meeting, the CM spoke on the need for a titling law but stressed that the process should be simple. Read More »

Investors Scripting Real Estate Recovery

“These are investors who are taking an opportunistic view of the situation where prices have corrected considerably in many locations ,” says Sanjay Dutt, CEO business at Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj (JLLM). He estimates that a good 40% of the stock sold in the last few months would have gone to investors. In Delhi-NCR , this figure might be higher at 50%. “Investors are back in good numbers and before the curve goes up, they want to buy. Some who have bought are already hoping to book profits during this Diwali ,” he adds. This could be a precursor to further improvement in investor sentiments, since investors would take this as a sign to look towards a sustainable run in the future.

Investors took flight from the residential real estate market when the market crashed last year and many have been shy of venturing back. The last few months though have seen a number of affordable launches at price points, which have stimulated the market . Most developers have launched mid-income housing in the Rs 20-40 lakh range, which has created a movement. While the short-term investor is there, interestingly, a good number of the investors are medium to long-term investors. “These investors are flocking to real estate because of the lack of other investment opportunities in the market at the moment,” says Ajit Krishnan , partner, real estate practice at audit firm Ernst and Young who feels the trigger for these investors was the drop in price points in the residential segment in the last eight months. Read More »

Parsvnath Developers will Sell Shares to Overcome Debt

“The New Delhi-based developer aims to sell shares to institutional investors by the end of October, and the stake in a housing project this month to a private equity fund” Parsvnath Developers Ltd plans to sell as much as $100 million (Rs489 crore) of shares and stake in a real estate project as it seeks to trim its debt to one-third by March, chairman Pradeep Jain said in an interview. “The New Delhi-based developer aims to sell shares to institutional investors by the end of October, and the stake in a housing project this month to a private equity fund,”Jain said. In June, the firm got Rs90 crore from private equity firm Red Fort Capital for a stake in a New Delhi housing project.

Indian developers including Unitech Ltd and Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd have raised more than $2.6 billion since April as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Realty Index more than tripled from a 9 March low. Investors are speculating a decline in borrowing costs and property prices will revive housing demand in a nation with an estimated shortage of 24.7 million homes. “The quarter for the sector has been good, but the sustainability will have to be checked,” said Nitin Idnani, an analyst with Enam Securities Pvt. Ltd in Mumbai. “Any increase in prices may dampen demand.” Read More »

Delhi Based University to Offer Course in Real Estate Laws and Management

Delhi-based National Law University is starting a one-year post-graduate diploma course in real estate laws and management. According to Ranbir Singh, vice chancellor of the university, it has tied up with Kaden Boriss Legal LLP, a Gurgaon-based corporate and commercial law firm for the same, which is preparing the course material for the proposed course.

“The programme will be designed to benefit not only lawyers and law students who want to specialise in real estate sector, but for everyone working in real estate and infrastructure companies as well who are dealing with legal problems related to property on a regular basis,” he said.