Latest Property News on 'Hyderabad'

Ozonegroup Announces Rs 3,000 cr Integrated Township Project in Bangalore

Real estate developer Ozonegroup has announced a Rs 3,000-crore integrated township project in Bangalore, near the Bangalore International Airport. The project, Ozone Urbana, would be spread across 150 acres, and “there is a potential to grow this to 167 acres,” said K S Sudarshan, chief operations officer, Ozonegroup, at the launch. The overall project cost would be around Rs 3,000 crore, said S Vasudevan, chairman and managing director, Ozonegroup, which includes land acquisition and infrastructure development costs of Rs 1,000 crore.

“We acquired the land over 3-4 years,” he added. The project would be funded through equity and investor funds. “We have also tied up with banks for project funding,” he said.
Urban Infrastructure Opportunities Fund, promoted by Anand Jain, in which Reliance Industries is the largest shareholder, has invested over Rs 1,000 crore in the Ozonegroup both at SPV level and entity level. At the entity level, the fund has 50 per cent stake in the company. The company also partners with HDFC Venture Fund.

Govt to Make Draft Real Estate Regulation Bill Public

The government will make public the draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill, 2011 for comments from stakeholders this week and may subsequently introduce it in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament. Aimed at protecting customers from fly-by-night developers, the draft Bill will seek to bring more transparency in the realty sector.

“We will upload the draft Bill on the Ministry’s website on November 11 for suggestions by public. After considering those suggestions, we are hopeful of introducing the bill during the winter session of Parliament,” Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja said. While unveiling the new logo and brand identity of Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI), she said the draft Bill has taken into account of the concerns raised by the builder community.

“The bill will be under the public domain for few days… We are also prepared to look into the suggestion of single window clearance system for realty projects wherever we can,” Selja said. Last week, she had said the Bill would protect the interest of consumers without hurting the real estate sector. “It will be a balanced kind of Bill, as on one hand we do not want consumers should be put into any difficulty (in real estate buying) and on the other hand, we definitely do not want to throttle the real estate industry. So it will be a balanced (one),” the minister had said.

Real estate developers led by CREDAI has been opposing the constitution of a regulatory body to supervise sector and said that it would become a “breeding ground for corruption” when implemented. They apprehended that the objective of the draft Bill was limited to just consumer protection, leaving other important issues such as long delay in approval and rising cost of material.
According to the draft, developers will need to make public disclosures related to land title, project completion date and other relevant scheme details on the website of the proposed regulatory authority. The disclosures must be made before launching a project, so that consumers are not taken for a ride at a later stage and the promoters will also have to register themselves with the regulatory authority.

NCC Urban Plans Residential & Commercial Projects in South India

NCC Urban Infrastructure Limited, a subsidiary of Hyderabad-based construction major NCC Ltd, is lining up over 10 residential and commercial projects, together with a built-up area of 2.5 million square feet, in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi. “While we recently launched six projects in Bangalore, both apartments and villas, which are expected to generate a turnover of Rs 250 crore per year, ventures in Hyderabad, Kochi and Chennai are to be launched in the next two to three months,” said Narayana Raju Alluri, managing director of NCC Urban.

The company had received Rs 150 crore as equity and the remaining as loan from the parent, NCC Limited, to fund acquisition of land for these projects, he added. NCC Urban, which has so far developed over 2 million sq ft of residential and commercial space, currently has a land bank of over 400 acre. The company is in the process of launching a 100-acre integrated township, enveloped with commercial space, in Visakhapatnam, besides a 150-unit apartment venture in Guntur city shortly.

On the company’s maiden overseas project, NCC Harmony, a twin-tower project of 2.3-million sq ft coming up at the Dubai Biotechnology and Research Park, Alluri said the project was going slow because of the Dubai financial crisis. The company had invested around Rs 150 crore in the project and raised the rest through sales. “With the Dubai market collapsing, the high-rise (35-floor) apartment project has not sold much. Construction work is still going on and it will take another two years to be completed,” Alluri said, adding the company garnered revenues of Rs 175 crore last year and was expecting it to touch Rs 200 crore this year.

AR Group launches high-end villa project in Chennai

The Chennai-based AR Group, which had earlier promoted the premium IT park, Acropolis in Chennai’s upmarket Dr Radhakrishnan Road, has announced the launch of premium high-end villas on the scenic East Coast Road (ECR). The project, Amara Ananta, coming up at Palavakkam on ECR and located close to the city, will offer a total of 25 high-end premium villas. Each villa will come up on a two and half ground land (one ground = 2,400 square feet) and around 5,500 square feet built-up area. Each villa will have a private swimming pool and facility to park two to three cars. Being developed as a gated community, the common facilities will include a large club house with a swimming pool, a 1,500 sq ft multi-purpose party hall and a 1,000 sq ft gym, besides service areas and terrace BBQ facility.

“Amara Ananta will be one of the best gated communities in the city. It will be a contemprory design executed with the best quality materials available in the market,” says Amarnath Reddy, managing director of AR Group. “The construction, which has already started, is in full swing and the villas will be handed over in about 18 months from now,” Reddy added. The gated community will also have four boutique showrooms to match the lifestyle of the villa owners and six different elevations, besides being centrally air-conditioned and furnished (except for furniture). Located just a few minutes’ away from the beach, the villas are modern, idyllic homes with the finest amenities, coupled with expansive estate, with spectacular green landscapes, Reddy observed.

Given the amenities and the large land area that comes to be owned by the buyers, the price per villa ranges between Rs 5.5 crore and Rs 7 crore, depending on amenities and fixtures chosen by the buyers. AR Group is targeting business people, HNIs and top-level executives for the villas in Amara Ananta, since it is not only coming up on ECR, but also located close to the city as well as easily accessible to OMR, the city’s IT Corridor.

Less Fireworks for Builders This Festive Season

The period around Diwali is usually the best time in the building trade, but this festive season a triple cocktail of volatile markets, double-digit interest rates and poor consumer confidence in a slowing economy has hit sales volumes, portending hard times for India’s real estate sector. Some brokers and market experts are bracing themselves for a 25-30% drop in transaction volumes in the country’s top six property markets during the October-December busy season, which, if it happens, could trigger a competitive spiral of discounting to get rid of mounting inventories and restore depleted cash levels.

But builders are holding on to price levels while buyers, reluctant to book flats at current price levels and interest rates firmly in double digits, remain convinced that it’s only a matter of time before the penny drops. Which side will blink first is still not certain, even though some builders concede all is not hunky dory. “There may not be much of a light for developers during this Diwali,” said Niranjan Hiranandani, chief of Mumbai-based builder Hiranandani Group. “It may not turn out to be a good one in terms of sales activity.”

Property developers are trying their best to woo buyers with festive offers, although these have failed to have much of an impact so far. With high inflation eating away at their earnings and financing costs high, buyers are looking for a significant correction in property prices rather than some festive season freebies. “Builders need to accept reality. This acceptance will lead to price correction and revival in volume,” said Pankaj Kapoor, managing director of Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research. Kapoor attributes the drop in sales volumes to steep property prices, rising interest rates and poor supply of socalled ‘affordable housing’ projects.

“Usually, during the festive season, prices firm up and there are new launches as well. But this season, both the inventory and prices of residential properties have remained static,” said Samarjit Singh of Agni Property, a property brokerage. The National Capital Region (NCR) comprising the satellite towns of Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad bordering Delhi, which turned in good sales numbers in the past two years, is facing supply constraints.

This is particularly true for Noida, which has seen a slew of regulatory actions prompted by farmers’ agitation over land acquisition. Singh says a lot of developers are repackaging their previously unsold inventory with special discounts to push sales. Lodha Developers in Mumbai and Ansal API in Delhi are among the builders who are repackaging their older inventories with newer discounts. “As far as sale of plotted land and mid-income housing is concerned, demand is intact in NCR and good sales traction is expected during this season,” said Anil Kumar, CEO of Ansal API. “However, sales may take a hit wherever there are issues of land title.”

Shriram Properties Announces Residential Projects in Rajahmundry, Vijayawada

Shriram Properties is planning to take up housing projects in Rajahmundry and Vijayawada, according to M Murali, managing director.
He was addressing the press in Visakhapatnam on Thursday after participating in the “bhoomi puja” for the block two in the housing project of the group — Shriram Panorama Hills — at Endada. He said the projects in Rajahmundry and Vijayawada were still in the preliminary stage, and sites had to be acquired for them. “We are keen on taking up housing ventures in the two coastal towns and later in other towns of Andhra Pradesh as well,” he said.

He said the group was focussing on middle-class and upper middle-class housing ventures, but not on luxury housing for the affluent sections. “There is a huge housing scarcity and unmet demand in the country. It is estimated that there is a deficit of 20 million homes right now and it is bound to increase. Therefore, there is room for any number of developers,” he said.
Murali said Panorama Hills in Visakhapatnam was a mega housing project, taken up at a total cost of Rs 1,800 crore, to build 2,000 apartments and 220 villas. “We are completing it in phases and the whole project may be completed by 2014-15. We have already sold 430 units and 120 villas,” he said.

Asokan, executive director, Shriram Properties said the construction of block-4 was in the advanced stage and most of the apartments and villas were sold out. “We have performed bhoomi puja today for block-2 with four towers consisting of 680 apartments. They are affordably priced at Rs 2,350 per sq ft. The block has 17 floors, we have already sold 160 units in the block,” he said.
He added that a “unique, eco-sensitive design” had been developed for the block. It would be completed in roughly two years’ time.

Govt Ready with Final Draft of Real Estate Bill

The Centre is ready with the final draft of a real estate bill that makes it compulsory for developers to disclose key aspects like carpet area and layout and promises a safety net for prospective home buyers. If the Real Estate (regulation and development) Bill, 2011 is cleared, developers can even be jailed for up to three years for making false promises to customers, many of whom invest their life’s savings for a place they can call their own. The jail term could be in addition to a penalty of 10 per cent of the total project cost.

The proposed law envisages a real estate authority to regulate all developers and real estate agents. All developers will have to register with the authority, the first such body in the sector. The draft, which The Telegraph has accessed, has been sent to the law ministry. Once cleared by the ministry, it will be presented to the cabinet before it is tabled in Parliament. The proposed act says developers have to disclose the carpet area, layout plan of the proposed apartments, structural design and plans for other on-site development. Builders cannot change plans or insert charges after the sale agreement is in place.

The draft says developers will have to upload on the proposed authority’s website all certificates and details that can be accessed by any future customer. “The act will bring a sea change in access to information that buyers have at present. The regulatory authority’s website will act as an interface between buyers and developers,” said an official with the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, the nodal ministry.
Developers cannot float fancy advertisements to attract buyers. If there is any deviation from the ad, the promoter has to compensate the buyers for any loss because of the false information. If a builder pulls out of a project, the money has to be returned with interest at not more than the prevailing market rate.

The bill also addresses the problem of disputed property. Since there have been cases where developers have used such property to build multi-storeyed apartments at attractive rates, the bill stipulates “full and true disclosure” of the nature of the title of the land to be developed. If the land is owned by any other party, the developer has to upload the agreement with that party. Under the draft law, developers cannot publish advertisements till projects are registered with the regulatory authority or force buyers to pay an advance without the sale agreement. If there are any “structural defects or deficiencies” in a building within “a year of allotment”, they will have to be “rectified by the promoter”.
The bill envisages an appellate tribunal, to be headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a retired high court chief justice. The tribunal can start investigations on its own if it receives a complaint of violation.

APIIC-Emaar Probe: CBI Questions Chiranjeevi’s Son

The CBI, which is probing the alleged irregularities in APIIC-Emaar Properties land deal, on Thursday continued examination of buyers of the villas sold by Emaar and also questioned Telugu film actor Ramcharan Tej, son of actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.
The villas and plots in ‘Emaar Hills’ township project in Gachibowli were allegedly purchased by several people from the film industry, family members of politicians and businessmen. The CBI last week issued notices to over 80 persons in this regard. CBI, which is probing the alleged irregularities in APIIC-Emaar Properties land deal, on Thursday continued examination of buyers of the villas sold by Emaar and also questioned Telugu film actor Ramcharan Tej, son of actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi.

The villas and plots in ‘Emaar Hills’ township project in Gachibowli were allegedly purchased by several people from the film industry, family members of politicians and businessmen. The CBI last week issued notices to over 80 persons in this regard. Ramcharan Tej — one of the villa owners — was quizzed for about one hour, CBI officials said. The agency is collecting information about buyers’ transactions with Emaar Hill Township Pvt Ltd (EHTPL), a joint venture of APIIC and Emaar Group. Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), in 2006, allotted 258 acres of land at Gachibowli to Emaar to develop an integrated township and a golf course.

CBI, on August 17, registered a case against B P Acharya, senior IAS officer and former Chairman and Managing Director of APIIC, and Emaar Group on the direction of the High Court, for cheating, criminal conspiracy and offences under Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency said Acharya, currently Principal Secretary (Home), entered into a criminal conspiracy with officials of Emaar Group and unknown public servants to cheat APIIC. One of the allegations is that Emaar sold plots at below the market rate prices, without the knowledge of APIIC, causing loss to it.izzed for about one hour, CBI officials said. The agency is collecting information about buyers’ transactions with Emaar Hill Township Pvt Ltd (EHTPL), a joint venture of APIIC and Emaar Group.

Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), in 2006, allotted 258 acres of land at Gachibowli to Emaar to develop an integrated township and a golf course. CBI, on August 17, registered a case against B P Acharya, senior IAS officer and former Chairman and Managing Director of APIIC, and Emaar Group on the direction of the High Court, for cheating, criminal conspiracy and offences under Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency said Acharya, currently Principal Secretary (Home), entered into a criminal conspiracy with officials of Emaar Group and unknown public servants to cheat APIIC. One of the allegations is that Emaar sold plots at below the market rate prices, without the knowledge of APIIC, causing loss to it.

Regulatory Body for Real Estate will lead to Corruption: CREDAI President

Real estate industry body CREDAI on Saturday opposed constitution of a regulatory body for the real estate sector, saying that it would become a “breeding ground for corruption” if implemented. “The proposed regulatory bill will become a breeding ground for corruption (if implemented),” the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) President Lalit Kumar Jain told reporters here. The Centre has proposed to form a regulatory body through the Real Estate Regulation Bill 2011 which seeks to protect home buyers from fly-by-night developers.

Arguing that the objective of draft regulatory bill was limited to just consumer protection, Jain sought the jurisdiction of the bill be expanded to address other pressing issues like long delay in approval, rising cost of material and labour etc, which hold utmost importance for the sector. “Only controlling one issue (consumer protection by the regulatory bill) is not going to help unless the entire spectrum of the industry is handled by the proposed bill,” he said. CREDAI further questioned the formation of any regulatory body on the ground that there were a number of options and mechanism like the consumer affairs department, the Competition Commission of India redress consumer grievances.

“Then what is the need for increasing the number of windows for (consumers),” asked CREDAI Vice President Getamber Anand. The real estate sector complained that delay in getting approvals from different departments, especially environment, cause bottlenecks for projects. “There are 48 departments attached to the real estate sector which leads to exploitation of developers…we are victims of corruption,” Anand said. “If the time taken for (statutory) approvals for starting a project is reduced, then the sale prices of the property could come down from 10 to 25 percent in the entire country,” he said.

Jain also pointed out that the spiraling labour and material cost had also put an additional burden on the real estate players. Meanwhile, CREDAI unveiled ‘Code of Conduct’ for the real estate sector for Punjab, aimed to bring transparency in the conduct of the business. “The Code of Conduct not only ensures transparency in real estate deals but will also imbibe setting up of a grievances redressal cell for the people who have unsavoury experience with respective real estate companies,” he said. Jain said if any member found to be indulged in wrong practice his membership could be terminated. He asserted that the Code of Conduct would make developers responsible towards their consumers.

Strong Lokpal May Expose Developers Nexus with Govt

Among many other things, the implementation of a strong Lokpal Bill will expose the nexus between government officials and developers. It will also control the flow of unaccounted black money in the real estate sector, which has been used as a parallel source of funds and income for decades.

“Developers as a private player will not directly come under the ambit of the Lokpal, but their nexus with the BMC and especially income-tax officials will surely be exposed. The flow of black money is enormous in real estate sector. Buyers frequently become victims of developers who demand black money. Citizens need to be alert and file regular complaints if something amiss is happening,” said noted IPS officer turned activist YP Singh.

Manohar Shroff, secretary of Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (Navi Mumbai) said the Lokpal Bill will reduce cash transactions as builders will prefer transactions by cheque. “Due to the nexus between bureaucracy and builders, the latter opt for cash. Corruption starts at the top and percolates down to the whole society,” he said.

Another developer said, “If we stop accepting black money, then the majority of profits will go in paying huge government taxes. We are not the only ones involved in this wrong practice, Even buyers do so while selling their own flats. They do not mention the real transaction amount in the sale agreement to save on taxes.”