India's largest property firm DLF is planning to launch villas in Gurgaon for Rs 1-1.5 crore, reports Sanjeev Choudhary. The company feels villas will score over apartments in offering a value proposition to home buyers in a market hit by slowdown. At a time, when Rs 1-crore apartments have become a commonplace in metros and their suburbs, providing a villa for a similar price will enthuse all potential home buyers, says a DLF executive. The company plans to launch its latest offering in a month. The total number of villas on offer is not clear yet, but the company executive said it could be over 500.

                                                                                           Courtesy: - ET dated: - 18th June 2008

Making it easier for urban cooperative banks to extend housing loans, Reserve Bank has relaxed the risk provisioning norm for purchase of residential properties up to Rs 30 lakh. The central bank issued notification on Monday in pursuance of the annual credit policy announcement made by Reserve Bank governor Y V Reddy on April 29. Earlier on May 15, the central bank had relaxed the risk provisioning norms for housing advances by the commercial banks. "It has been decided to enhance the limit of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh in respect of bank loans for housing in terms of applicability of risk weights for capital adequacy purposes. Accordingly, such loans will carry a risk weight of 50%," Mr Reddy had said.

                                                                                          Courtesy: - ET dated: - 18th June 2008

MCD ANNOUNCES 20 PER CENT REBATE0

For Four years, residents of cooperative group housing societies (CGHS) had been waiting for rebate in house tax, a concession they availed before the implementation of the unit area method (UAM) in Delhi. After much wait the rebate has been restored; the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has announced a 20 per cent discount in house tax for the residents of housing societies.

For the residents it is the realisation of their legitimate demands and the MCD claims to have delivered on their promise.

Prior to the implementation of UAM, the MCD gave a 15 per cent rebate to those living in CGHS. The housing societies availed the rebate in lieu of maintaining the internal infrastructure on their own. After April 2004, which is on implementation of UAM in Delhi, the rebate was stopped.

Facing financial hardship, various federations of CGHS cried throughout Delhi hoarse over the MCD's failure to provide rebate.

Meanwhile, the demand for restoring the rebate kept getting stronger. Finally, the MCD Standing Committee tabled the proposal for reinstating the rebate during the budget presentation and it has been passed. "It was a commitment. We had promised that we will work towards restoring the rebate in house tax at the earliest and we have delivered it. Those living in housing societies can avail the benefits for the financial year 2008-09," said Vijendra Gupta, chairman of the MCD Standing Committee.

He adds, "Instead of giving the rebate to the society we will continue with the system of giving the rebate to individual."

MCD will give 20 per cent rebate in house tax and another 15 per cent for timely payment. Residents can now avail a total rebate of 35 per cent.

                                                                                            Courtesy:- HT, dtd:- 25th March, 2008

The Railways much-awaited commercial development plan for surplus land is set to begin in the second week of April. Delhi's Sarai Rohilla, one of the 10 sites selected for commercial development in the first phase on public private partnership basis, will go under hammer on April 11. Eight bidders are in the race for the about 25 acres of the prime Railway land in Sarai Rohilla. The reserve price for the bidding is fixed at Rs 675 crore.

Besides the reserve price, the developer has to renovate 750 Railway quarters near the site as part of the development agreement. The highest bidder will develop a group housing complex complete with all modern facilities including shopping complex and health services, said a Railway official.

After Sarai Rohilla, the next bidding will be for Nirala Nagar land in Kanpur, the official said. The 10 sites are located in Delhi, Kanpur, Gwalior, Vizag, Kolkata, and Bangalore. The feasibility study report for commercial development of the 10 sites spread over 265 acres of land has been submitted to the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA).

                                                                                          Courtesy:- ET, dtd:- 21 st March 2008

There are a lot of offers that are made by developers to the investors or to those who want to buy some property. These are usually seen during festive times and hence it becomes very important to understand the nature of the benefit and whether they actually want to make use of the situation. There are various ways in which this situation can be achieved.

Interest discount

One of the best ways in which a property will be sold is by giving a discount to the buyer in terms of the interest that they will pay on the loan that they have taken for buying the property Most individuals take a loan for the purchase of a property and they will be made an offer whereby the rate of interest on the loan is reduced for a specific time period so that the individual is able to pay a lower amount when it comes to the loan repayment figure. This is expected to encourage people to go in for buying at this current stage.

Less cost

There can be some additional benefits that the developer will throw in so that a person is encouraged to buy the property at this particular stage. The benefits can be extremely varied and would range from the availability of several additional services for the individual to enjoy in their new house to the fact that they might even get far more than what they would have normally received by paying the amount that they are actually doing. This can be reduced charges for parking or it can be additional services in the house. These benefits would vary from developer to developer and the individual will have to make a correct evaluation of the offer that is made to them.

Freebies

There are often several freebies that are thrown in when a developer would like to increase sales and this can include free membership at some local club or some other benefit. Some developers might provide several types of furniture in the house or there might be some add-ons for the individual without him having to pay more. There are several variants that can be adopted when freebies are thrown in and the individual will have to be alert about the kind of benefits he is receiving and whether these are actually worth going in for.

Discounts

The last thing that developers often offer is discount in the price of the property. This is used as a last resort and creates a situation that is in favour of the buyer. It gives the buyer a good value for money by brining down the cost. In most cases the discount is available for a few days within which the prospective buyer has to take a decision.

FACING REALTY

There are a lot of offers in the festive season
One common offer is for a reduced rate of interest
There are also some cost reductions for buyers
Free gifts are also thrown in to sweeten the deal
The last resort is discounts in the actual rate sales

                                                                                                      Courtesy: HT dtd:- 4th Feb 2008

This is a 1,483 km long dedicated freight corridor that will pass through states like Uttar Pradesh, NCR, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. A band of 150 km on each side of the freight corridor will be developed as an industrial corridor.

Six investment regions and six industrial areas will be developed along this corridor during phase 1 (2008-2012). These will be developed as self-sustaining industrial townships with world-class infrastructure, road and railway connectivity for freight movement to and from ports and logistic hubs.

Ten cities having a population of more than 10 lakh fall within the project influence area (PIA) of DMIC: Delhi, Mumbai, Faridabad, Meerut, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Pune, and Nasik. It is expected that these cities will see a lot of development of industrial infrastructure, setting up and enhancement of existing industrial estates, setting up of IT-ITES and biotech hubs, development of integrated logistic hubs, sea ports, and integrated townships. Some cities like Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Nasik and Vadodara lie both within the influence area of DMIC, and are also major nodes on the Golden Quadrilateral project.

These cities are expected to witness large-scale real estate development because of improved accessibility and the availability of large land parcels.

Urban infrastructure projects 

The government of India has also initiated or is augmenting the Metro rail network in several cities in order to take care of problems like traffic congestion, delays, and pollution caused by growing vehicular traffic. Some of the major metro projects are as follows:

Delhi Metro 

As part of phase 1, the Delhi Metro runs on three lines. As part of phase 2, which is currently underway, the Metro will be extended from Delhi to Gurgaon and Noida. Extending the Dwarka line up to Gurgaon has also been proposed. This phase is expected to be completed by 2010, before the start of the Commonwealth Games.
Towards the north, the Metro will be extended up to Sonepat and Kundli. Those areas to which the Metro is proposed are expected to see a substantial rise in real estate prices on account of improved connectivity, and reduced travel time to the heart of the city.

Bangalore Metro 

A 33-kilometre Metro rail network is planned for Bangalore. Two lines have been proposed: an east-west corridor of 18.1 km, and a north-south corridor of 14.1 km. Land acquisition and soil testing have begun, and the Metro is expected to be operational from 2011. The major areas which are expected to benefit from the Metro, and hence see an appreciation in their real estate prices, are Trinity Circle, Ulsoor, CMH Road, Indiranagar, and Bypannahalli.

Hyderabad Metro 

This project will cover high-density areas such as Erragadda, Sanjeevareddy Nagar, Punjagutta, Assembly, Secretariat, Gandhi Bhawan, Osmania Medical College, Malakpet, Dilsukhnagar, Chikkadapalli and Ramnagar. Altogether the Metro network here will be of 66.39 km.

No doubt, in 2008 and beyond, infrastructure development will both support and drive the growth of the real estate sector.

                                                                                                   Courtesy: TOI dtd: 19th Jan. 2008

Aiming to turn a ‘conglomerate’ from being a real estate major, Parsvnath Developers has announced an investment of Rs 60,000 crore in next five years in diversified areas such as SEZs, airports, express ways and retails business.

The company owns over 14 million square feet of land for retail business in 48 cities and that would be an advantage for Parsvnath as all other prospective retailers would have to bank upon them for space.

The group will bid for upcoming airports in Udaipur, Greater Noida and Maharashtra. Parsvnath will focus on development of SEZs hotels, highways, retail and telecom. The company plans to leverage its huge land bank.

                                                                          Courtesy: - Business Standard dtd:- 21st Jan. 2008

Chandigarh: The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is to construct 20,660 flats for the economically-weaker sections of society in the districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh, Rewari, Rohtak, Kaithal, Ambala, Hisar, Jind and Sirsa. Over 2,000 units are already under construction in Panchkula. This was announced by Chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda recently. Speaking about HUDA's achievements he said that it had provided 241,000 residential plots, 20,000 commercial sites, 12,000 industrial plots and 948 acres of land for cooperatives and group housing schemes.

                                                                                                  Courtesy:- ET, dtd:- 20th Jan.2008