Real estate prices hit the roof in Chandigarh

Cricket player Harbhajan Singh was successful in zeroing on a four kanal house in posh Sector 9 of Chandigarh recently after a hunt of two years.

Yes, this is the right time to strike a deal in Real Estate Chandigarh and its periphery. After an unprecedented escalation in the real estate prices for about three years, the realty bubble has become standstill.

The experts call it a correction in the real estate prices.

The prices started escalating three years back and went through the roof. Several factors like industrial development in Baddi, demand from NRIs, foray of the IT sector in the tricity of Chandigarh and easy availability of housing finance were the factors often quoted for the northward movement of realty in Chandigarh.

Mohali is the frontrunner in registering a fall in the value of residential properties. The uncertain political scenario in Punjab due to assembly polls scheduled for February 13 has cast its shadow on the real estate business.

The ruling Congress offered sundry incentives for the developemnt of industry in Mohali and creating a special economic zone by Quark and proposing more SEZs for the region. This caused a spurt in the demand for property for genuine and specilative purposes.

But the uncertainity of the outcome of the elections has severely undermined the returns on investments in real estate. The Shiromani Akali Dal, a strong contender in the assembly polls, has announced reviewing all the real estate projects awarded by the Amarinder Singh government.

However, inquiries revealed that prices has started coming down by 20 to 25 per cent after touching a peak, in the case of Mohali, Panchkula and its peripheries like Zirakpur, Dera Bassi and Rajpura.

Making it tough time for consultants and investors with no hope of revival of the real estate boom witnessed in the past couple of months. However in case of Chandigarh, the prices has gone down by 8-12 per cent.

According to a property consultant in Mohali, a 500 square yard plot in Mohali which was priced at Rs 1.6-1.9 crore (Rs 16-19 million) in prime location, now it is available at Rs 1.3-1.6 crore (Rs 13-16 million).

Sources in Emaar MGF, a real estate player, informed Business Standard that this is the right time to buy a property in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali as prices have slashed by 15-25 per cent to what it was eight months ago. The prices had touched the roof and the current slump clearly indicates that the prices were artificially jacked-up by the property dealer-investor nexus, he added.

Talking to Business Standard, Mahesh Budhiraja of Goodwill Property Consultants said, "We can't say that the rates has gone down, but the prices are in 'correctional mode.'

Mangat Rai of Subhash Mangat Property Consultants said that the investors and property dealers adopting a 'wait-and-watch' policy, only genuine buyers and sellers are trading so the transactions have come down.

Meanwhile, the slump in the real estate market could also be established from the fact that a majority of the promoters going in for 'pre-launch' booking of the residential plots and flats have deferrred their plans.

Players in the real estate business informed that the worst hit have been the investors and speculators, who entered into the real estate market to make a fast buck.

Source://rediff.com

Harbhajan buys a lavish house in Chandigarh

This one is a real 'doosra', the quirky deliveries associated with off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, but this time it was not delivered on the cricket field but in the real estate arena.

Bhajji, as he is popularly known in cricketing circles, has purchased a palatial 2,000-sq yards house in Chandigarh said to cost about Rs. 70 million (Rs. 7 crores).

Amarjit Singh Sethi, a leading real estate consultant, confirmed the deal to IANS, saying that the cricketer was keen to buy a property in Chandigarh.

'The registration of this house (House no. 10 in the upscale Sector 9) is the highest one done in the city among residential properties,' Sethi said.

Harbhajan was keen that he paid the price of the house in white money, sources close to him said.

Originally from Punjab's Jalandhar city, 200 km from here, Harbhajan had a modest beginning but fame and fortune came his way after he got a place in the Indian cricket team almost a decade ago.

His family had a small house in Daulatpuri area of Jalandhar near a famous landmark, Do Moria bridge.

He had bought a house from Punjab's urban development agency in Jalandhar a few years ago. He was even hired by the agency to promote other properties in that area.

The sector in which he has bought the house is already home to several VIPs and elite people in Chandigarh. These include former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, former union ministers, Venod Sharma and Harmohan Dhawan. Union Tourism Minister Ambika Soni also owns a villa in the same sector.

The sector, home to the rich and the famous, stands on the ground where India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru first stood on a platform in the 1950s with the city's founder architect Le Corbusier to have a view of the land where the country's first planned city was to be built.

However, this is not Harbhajan's first association with Chandigarh.

He had, three years ago, opened a hair and beauty salon in the upscale Sector 11. Sourav Ganguly, then captain of the Indian cricket team, inaugurated the salon. Bhajji later gave up his share in the enterprise.

Source://andhracafe.com

Ritesh Industries enters into JV agreement with API for real estate project

Ritesh Industries Ltd has announced that the Company has entered into a joint venture agreement with renowned builders and developers Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Ltd (API) for setting up a 40-acre real estate Chandigarh project on its land located at prime location on Ludhiana-Chandigarh State Highway.

First-of-its kind in North India, the Rs 800-crore project, will consist of residential and Business Park, School, Community Centre, Place of worship, Shopping arcade, ample parking lots etc.

The Punjab Government has already approved the Project of the Company as a Mega Project and all requisite approvals including approval of drawings and other approvals for the said project have been obtained. The initial work on the site has started. The formal launch of the Project will take place with in a month.

It will take two to three years to complete the project and the Company shall reap a benefit of Rs 150 Crores from the project.

Source://equitybulls.com

Fun Parks mega bucks

Who needs Disneyland when you have us?” questions Rakesh Babbar, the managing director of IRPPL (International Recreation Parks Pvt. Ltd.), the company behind the upcoming Entertainment City in the heart of Noida. The Entertainment City, spread over 150 acres and being set up at an investment of Rs.1100 crore, represents a new class of parks that are under construction or are being planned around the country. Larger, better and with the costliest ‘rides’ around, they reflect a change in not only how park operators and real estate developers think about amusement parks, but also how state governments perceive them.

Other upcoming projects include two planned by ISKCON, one at Vrindavan in Dwaraka, at an investment of Rs.1000 crores over 600 acres of land and one at Bangalore at an investment of Rs.350 crores. The themes for the two parks would revolve around the stories of Krishna. The religious theme is held in common with a Rs.100 crore park being promoted by the Saagar family at Haridwar. Revolving around the epic Ramayana, the park to be called ‘Ganga Dham’ will be situated on the banks of the Ganga.

Source://financialexpress.com

Prices stable after rising for three years

Prices have remained stable in the Chandigarh real estate market this year. The price of a square yard is around Rs 48,000 to Rs 50,000. In Mohali and Panchkula it is around Rs 28,000 to Rs 30,000.After the explosion in the prices in the last two years, this year’s experience is one of a slowdown. The demand and supply curves are crossing, with supply expected to grow more than the demand in the tricity region.

Bride Groom 18 - 24 25 - 30 31 - 35 36 - 45 46 - 50 50+ Hindu Muslim Christian Sikh Parsi Jain Buddhist Jewish Other A steep price rise started in late 2003, and continued till January-February 2006. The real estate market sentiment suddenly picked up with the expectation of the IT industry coming to the regions, and the prospects of the big companies in real estate investing in the region. Sunil Bandha, Director ONS Developers and Promoter “ The boom was mainly a result of the bank finance available at low interest rates and 100 per cent income tax exemption to Group Housing Developers for the construction of flats up to 1,500 sq ft in the Chandigarh region.”

In unplanned areas like Zirakpur where the local property dealers suddenly turned into developers buying agricultural land and cutting out residential plots in these, they found the middle class, especially government employees working in Chandigarh as their customer. The price of a sq yd in January 2003 hovered around Rs 2,000 which rose to Rs 4,000 by mid 2004, and by the end of 2005 this was around Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000.

Source://expressestates.in