Latest Property News on 'Mumbai'

Mumbai Top Real Estate Destinations in Terms of Price Escalation

Property-seekers might think Delhi-NCR has the maximum appreciation potential within a year’s time. However, according to the latest property index released by real estate portal Makaan.com, it’s the Mumbai real estate market which beat all Indian cities in terms of price escalation over a period of 12 months. Mumbai has bucked the economic slowdown by witnessing a whopping 24.7 per cent jump in prices between January and December 2009. During the same period, realty rates in Delhi-NCR rose by 8.8 per cent.

But other emerging residential destinations such as Hyderabad and Bangalore have witnessed a fall of 7.7 and 2.2 per cent, respectively, the index added. However, Pune market gained significantly by 9.9 per cent. The survey revealed that all these five cities — Delhi- NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore — witnessed a drop in property prices in the first six months — January to June — due to slump in the market. But the subsequent gain came following the launch of various affordable units. These units have now achieved premium value across India. Read More »

Investors Leaving Mumbai-Gujarat Emerging as More Preferable Destination

Hardik Shah, who deals in real estate in Vapi town of south Gujarat, is a busy man these days. Vapi has been a favourite location for industrialists from Mumbai who want to set up plants in Gujarat because they find the state more investor friendly. On Wednesday, he was with a client near Sanjan trying to identify land for a medium-sized petrochemical unit. “Of late, inquiries from Mumbai have increased substantially for suitable land near Maharashtra’s border with Gujarat. These people are upset with parochialism in and around Mumbai,” says Shah.

Obviously, Amitabh Bachchan is not the only Mumbaikar who is rooting for Gujarat. The shrill tone of ‘Amchi Mumbai’ is driving investments towards Gujarat. S Sukeja, director of a firm which makes cranes, says, “Though we are based in Mumbai and we had planned some expansion in Thane, we have now decided to relocate the new unit to Gujarat.” This, according to government officials, has pushed up realty prices by at least 10 to 15 per cent in just the last two weeks. “Normally, realty deals in Gujarat take place only after Uttarayan. But the trouble in Mumbai has only spurred interest here,” a collector of a south Gujarat district told TOI. Read More »

RLDA Makes 4th Attempt to Sell Prime Land at Commercial Hub in Mumbai

A parcel of land close to the Bandra-Kurla commercial hub in Mumbai has been put up for sale again by the Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA). The reserve price of the 45,371-square-metre plot was last pegged at Rs 3,960 crore. This is the fourth attempt by RLDA, the nodal agency for development of railway land in the country, to sell the land. It has invited expressions of interest (EoIs) from companies to develop the prime land. The last date for receiving EoIs is February 28, after which a new reserve price will be announced. The land authority had put the auctioning on hold earlier as the deputy commissioner of the area claimed part ownership of the land. “The dispute with local authorities had been partly solved. We hope to resolve it completely soon,” said a senior official from RLDA.

In its previous attempt to sell the land in 2008, RLDA had cut the reserve price of the plot by nearly 14 per cent to the current Rs 3,960 crore. It also reduced the minimum networth requirement by similar margins in a bid to perk up the interest of bidders. Though developers such as DLF, Unitech, Parsvnath and Indiabulls expressed interest in the project, they backed out as the reserve price was considered too high given the slowdown in the real estate. Earlier, the authority had more than trebled the reserve price of the plot to Rs 4,628 crore, on the grounds that extra development could be done on the land due to relaxed norms. The state government had increased the floor space index to 4 and a developer could build up to 150,000 sq metres, or 1.6 million sq ft, of space. Read More »

Real Estate Mumbai Firms Ride High on SC’s ‘forest land’ Ruling

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the “forest land” matter has triggered a frenetic activity in the realty sector in some of the Mumbai’s prominent suburbs. Though the interim ruling on January 13 does not allow resuming construction, developers and even residents’ association are confident that the SC relief is a step towards regularisation of all “illegal” properties on about 250 acres, spread in suburbs of Mulund, Thane, Nahur and Bhandup.

Some developers, with around 45 major residential projects at stake, have interpreted the interim ruling as a green light to resume construction. But, Debi Goenka of the Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG), which had filed the original petition in the Bombay High Court in 2001 against commercial exploitation of forest land, warns the developers against this interpretation. “If the developers interpret the ruling that way, then god help them. The SC has not vacated the stay imposed by the Bombay HC on construction activity,” Mr Goenka said. Read More »

Further Decline in Office Space Rentals at Nariman Point

The micro-market of Nariman Point was among the few in the country where office space rentals fell over the last quarter in an otherwise stabilising commercial real estate market. According to a report by commercial real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis, this is primarily due to relocation of offices from Nariman Point to further north of Mumbai. Rentals of grade A offices in the Central Business District (CBD) of Nariman Point, Fort and Cuffe Parade fell from Rs 300/sq ft to Rs 290/sq ft a month while those in grade B offices fell from Rs 225/sq ft to Rs 210/sq ft a month. The overall rentals in the area decreased by three per cent over the last three months of 2009. “The Central Business District (CBD) of Nariman Point continued to witness pressure on absorption on account of tenants relocating or evaluating potential relocation to the Extended and Alternate Business Districts,” the report says.

Some of the major offices that have recently vacated more than 1 lakh sq ft of office space in Nariman Point include JP Morgan that has shifted to Kalina and Hindustan Unilever that has moved to Andheri. As a result, grade A office space in Nariman Point, which had a high vacancy rate of 10 per cent in September last year, has now registered a higher vacancy rate of 18 per cent. Read More »

Property Expo Navi Mumbai Sells 5,000 Flats in Three Days

A property exhibition at Navi Mumbai not only drew in huge crowds but also did big business—about 5,000 flats were sold in three days. Initially, most Navi Mumbai builders were reluctant to participate in the three-day exhibition because of the recession. By Monday, they were buoyed by the unexpected response. “According to rough estimates, the overall transactions were well over Rs 1,000 crore,’’ said Suresh Haware, chief of the Maharashtrian Builders Forum. “We are still in the process of calculating the number of flats sold. But it was most likely over 5000.’’

A senior office-bearer of the Builders Association of Navi Mumbai said over one lakh people visited the 3-day property exhibition, while 60 builders from Navi Mumbai, Mumbai, Thane and neighbouring areas exhibited their properties. Last year, the response was very poor as the exhibition was held just after the terror attack on November 26. Read More »

MMRDA Leasing Out Land at Fraction of Sale Price to Fight Property Market Crash

The property market crash has foiled the plot for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which relies on selling the land in its possession at market rates to fund infrastructure projects. Worried that the trend will continue, the authority is toying with a new revenue stream — of leasing the land, at a fraction of the sale price. The authority will get the land back after the lease expires, by when, hopefully, the market would have recovered.

On the top of its list is the 370-hectare planned office space at Bandra Kurla Complex, for which the authority is planning to invite lease bids in the next few months. The successful bidder would be the one who either quotes the highest rental irrespective of market fluctuation, or a rent which increases over a period of time. Alternatively, the authority may ask interested firms to quote both the rent and the number of years for which they want to lease. Since the idea is to get higher rental, the authority may also decide to become a stakeholder in the new building. Read More »

Owning an Apartment in Burj Khalifa Cheaper than Owning a Property in Central Delhi

An apartment on the 100th floor of ‘Burj Khalifa’, the world’s tallest building and one of the most-sought after addresses in the world today, comes at a price of Rs 38,000 per sq ft. But if you think that’s a soaring price, consider this: desi realty rates beat that by a mile. The rates of apartments on Prithviraj Road and Aurangzeb Road in central Delhi are much higher. The per sq ft rate of apartments in Marble Arch and Tata Apartments on Prithviraj Road is around Rs 65,000 per sq ft. Similarly, Ansal apartments on Aurangzeb Road have a price of Rs 55,000 per sq ft, said senior broker Hemendra Sharma.

In Vasant Vihar and Chanakya Puri in South Delhi, apartments built on smaller plots of 400-800 sq metres are commanding prices of around Rs 45,000 per sq ft. In fact, there are not many luxury condominiums available in central and south Delhi. However, there are several bungalows on independent plots of around three acres with a permitted area of construction of 3500 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft. These plots are commanding a price of Rs 200 crore to Rs 500 crore. So the per sq ft cost of these bunglow comes to a whopping Rs 5 lakh per sq ft. Read More »

Maharashtra State Govt Increases Real Estate Value by 10-20%

Property in Maharashtra just got more expensive. The state government has increased the market value of real estate by 10-20 per cent in its Ready Reckoner 2010. The ready reckoner is a guide for the market price of residential and commercial properties, based on which stamp duty and registration fee for their sale and purchase are calculated. Under the revised rates, a land owner would have to pay more stamp duty because his land got more expensive; the developer would raise the sale price of his finished property since his land acquisition cost got higher; and a retail buyer would have to cough up more for property, stamp duty and registration fee.

This is likely to have its rippling effect on redevelopment of old, dilapidated buildings in Mumbai and surrounding Tier II cities, too. With the upward revision of rates, properties being developed on textile mill land would also see a sharp rise as the ready reckoner raised their value on an average by 13 per cent. “The state government expects to mobilise Rs 5,075 crore through stamp duty and registration fee by the end of 2009-10,” a senior state government official, who did not want to be quoted, said, justifying the rate revision. A large number of builders and developers representing the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association (Credai) and the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry (MCHI) expressed their dissatisfaction over the decision. Read More »

Mumbai Rated as the 2nd Most Promising Development Market

According to the ‘Emerging Trends in Real Estate Asia Pacific 2010 report’ released recently, India’s Financial Capital Mumbai was ranked second only to Shanghai as the most promising development market. “Development has increased there in all property sectors, but construction of affordable housing is particularly strong, as the government continues to lower mortgages and the middle class is being offered “good-quality, honest accommodations,” said the Report brought out jointly by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Interestingly included under the sub head ‘Markets to Watch’, the predictions are based heavily on projections for strong activity in China and India. “I think there are buying opportunities for some time,” states one investor quoted in the report. This is reflected in the choices made by survey participants for real estate investment and development: Shanghai, Mumbai, and New Delhi are first, second, and fourth, respectively, for real estate development opportunities. (Ho Chi Minh City ranked third for development prospects.) Shanghai has topped the list ‘primarily due to the Chinese government’s decision to infuse the economy with liquidity’.