The ground reality
November 15, 2008
Tejeesh N.S. Behl
House hunting in the NCR is akin to a picnic— take the day off and visit several properties and property dealers, haggle till your tongue drops off and then haggle some more. My first stop: Eldeco Utopia in Noida’s Sector 93, just off the Expressway. Inside the on-site marketing office, I quickly get down to business: that I am a bona fide house hunter looking for a minimum three-bedroom apartment.
The sales officer offers me three-bedroom plus servant room units that are ready-to-move-in. I cut directly to the chase: damages. “Rs 1.24 crore is the basic sales price (BSP), plus extra charges like car parking, preferential location charges (PLC), etc.,” he says. This, for a 2,150 sq. feet apartment (Super Area)—which would work out to approximately 1,500 square feet carpet area.
While a down payment would fetch me an 8 per cent discount (a teaser, as I discover later), installments make me eligible for only 4 per cent. “Rs 1.24 crore is a bit on the higher side,” I tell him, especially since I figure that apart from the Expressway, there’s not much this apartment can boast of. No nearby provision stores or markets, no easily available transportation, no education or medical facilities, I argue. He responds with future prospects and valuations—I stick to the present. He throws in another 4 per cent—I am now up at 12 per cent discount and hungry for more. “What’s your offer?” he queries. I quote Rs 80 lakh. He baulks, but adds another 4 per cent to the discount basket—making me richer by 16 per cent. Round it off to 20 per cent, I suggest. Clearly, he’s a little weary now and hesitatingly accepts. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Next halt, the under-construction Omaxe Grand Woods and Omaxe Forest Spa, also in Sector 93. The company’s already discounted the listed price of Rs 7,100 per sq. feet for a 2,900 sq. feet three bedroom apartment at Forest Spa by Rs 900 per sq. feet. “If you opt for a down payment, there’s a further rebate of 10 per cent,” informs the smooth-talking company representative. A price of Rs 5,580 per sq. feet even before I start talking. Greedy, I push for more. He needs authorisation from company for more. At the Omaxe Twin Towers, in Noida’s Sector 50, a three-bedroom plus servant room 2,150 sq. feet apartment is offered for Rs 4,950 per square feet—a measly discount of 10 per cent. I protest and gingerly he reaches out to his calculator and punches in a few numbers. Rs 4,851 per sq. feet, he comes back. I push for more—and the outcome is Rs 4,800 per sq. feet. I know there’s more juice left and the company representative confirms it with his parting shot: “If you are willing to write a cheque right now, we could negotiate something to your liking.” I smile—mission nearly accomplished.
Apartment visited: Eldeco Utopia
Listed price: Rs 1.24 crore plus
Area: 2,150 sq. ft
Price after bargain: Rs 1 crore plus
November 18, 2008
Tejeesh N.S. Behl
Indian it’s el dorado, Gurgaon, is a living example of an idiot-proof city—with little by way of signages and infrastructure, it ensures that idiots and directionally challenged people stay away. Searching for DLF Royalton, I manage to chance upon the nearing-completion Connoisseur Apartments in Sector 43, right next to the Gold Souk. The 2,500 sq. feet four-bedroom apartments, as I learn, come with an asking price of Rs 6,400 per sq. feet—and I am offered an all-inclusive price of Rs 1.65 crore. Sure, it includes all woodwork, modular kitchen and air-conditioning, but the eight figure digit is way too much, I reason with the company’s representative. It’s a sign of the times that realtors are amenable to prices suggested by customers—he suggests a discussion on the price. While I start with Rs 1.1 crore, he responds with Rs 1.55 crore. I quote Rs 1.3 crore—he suggests a teleconference with his MD Anil Sharma, who’s unwilling to go below Rs 1.4 crore.
Fobbing them off, I head towards DLF’s Royalton Towers where a software firm owner, probably singed by the heat of the meltdown, wants to get rid of his fourbedroom 3,900 sq. feet apartment. His asking price: Rs 6,000 per sq. feet. It’s probably been bought as an investment, so you could negotiate, suggests the broker. I check a few other properties—Vipul’s Belmonte on Golf Course Road, where a four-bedroom 4,100 sq. feet apartment is quoting at Rs 5,800 per sq. feet, DLF’s Belaire, launched at Rs 6,000 per sq. feet for a fourbedroom 3,200 sq. feet apartment, fell to Rs 5,600 per sq. feet and has stabilised at Rs 5,800 per sq. feet.
I check into a local real estate consultancy, Temple Estate and Securities and get talking to Anant Bawa, CEO, Gurgaon-Residential. There’s been a softening, he confirms, but only to the extent of Rs 100-200 per sq. feet in most cases with a few exceptions like the Ridgewood Estate where a three-bedroom 1,400 sq. feet apartment went for Rs 76 lakh vis-à-vis an asking price of Rs 84 lakh a few months back. He suggests if my budget is in the region of Rs 4,000 per sq. feet, I should probably look at apartments on Sohna Road.
As I make my way out of his office, his sales executive motions me aside. “If you’re willing to wait for a month, I can assure you prices around this part (DLF Phase 4 and 5) will be down by another Rs 1,000-1,200 per sq. feet,” he informs. My Gurgaon trip hasn’t gone waste after all!
Apartment visited: Connoisseur Apartments
Listed price: Rs 1.65 crore
Area 2,500 sq. ft
Price after bargain: Rs 1.4 crore
November 11-12, 2008
Somnath Dasgupta
Kolkata, as usual, has to be different: it is almost impossible to find a builder in the organised sector who is offering discounts on the list price, although, over the past few years, there has been a boom in real estate led by a clutch of public-private partnerships, private players and national names.
As BT played middle-class buyer to visit offices of major as well as unorganised builders across the city, the reply was the same: “What discount? We don’t have any discounts.” An official of private sector major Merlin even boasted: “We are selling a flat every day. There has been no fall in demand.”
According to Abhijit Das of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj Property Consultants, there are two reasons why builders here can afford to stick to list prices. First, most of the land bank was built up years ago and so acquired relatively cheap. Second, Kolkata has more end-users than speculators.
Demand has come down, he says, but only because housing loans have become expensive. “The economy’s growth over the past few years happened because of low interest rates,” says Das. “Now, demand will go up only if rates are cut by two or three percentage points. A half-percentage point cut will not do anything.”
Pradeep Sureka, President of Credai Bengal, the confederation of real estate developers’ bodies, says Kolkata has always been a very conservative market. “Builders are not overleveraged, the laws here do not permit large land banks, and so the supply chain is also not very large,” says Sureka, who is also Managing Director of one of the PPPs changing the face of the state, Bengal Park Chambers Housing Development Ltd.
“A private sector major cannot hold more than 25-30 acres,” says Sureka. Also, he says, “prices here have not galloped as they have elsewhere.”
Sureka says there has been some correction in central areas, where land is hard to come by and is very expensive, but this has happened over the past year and is not connected to the credit crunch.
Apartment visited: Ashray Residency
(Marketed by Pioneer Property)
Area 1,037 sq. ft
Listed price: Rs 25 Lakh (plus parking)
Price after bargain: Rs 25 Lakh (No Change)
November 12, 2008
Anusha Subramanian
As i got cracking on my house-hunt, Thane was an unlikely first stop for the simple reason that the discount was mind-boggling—one house free on purchase of a house. “Ek Ghar pe Ek Ghar free”... read the advertisement from Cosmos Prime Projects Ltd. Curiosity led me to call the firm and visit the property. The properties were available in Cosmos Lounge, Cosmos Spring and Sankal Heights. I was told that on the purchase of a bungalow or a 1,200-1,300 sq. feet unit in any of these three properties, a 500 sq. feet unit was free. The new flats are being sold at Rs 3,600-Rs 6,200 per sq. feet. The catch: the free flat is located some 20-25 km away from Thane towards Kalyan at a place called Kaler. Despite this, the scheme sounded enticing.
Back in Mumbai, I called Swastik Realtors to check on a two-bedroom unit in Chembur and Ghatkopar in Central Suburbs of Mumbai. Both are prime residential localities. No two-bedroom units are available in these areas; all are sold. I could check in Tilak Nagar (a pocket area between Chembur and Ghatkopar), the developer tells me. At Tilak Nagar, I am shown a 1,050 sq. feet sample flat on the second floor of an underconstruction building. The building is centrally located with all amenities like a grocery, departmental store, bus facility to all parts of the city, rail stations (Harbour and Central) to get to town, school, restaurants and the works.
The price of the Rs 6,800 per sq. feet flat with all formalities such as registration, stamp duty charges etc. works out to Rs 70 lakh. Initial down payment: Rs 11 lakh. I bargain, but the builder refuses to budge. The running rate three months ago in the same locality was about Rs 7,800 to Rs 8,000 per sq. feet, I am told.
Some more haggling later, the builder is willing to offer a few trimmings. The sample flat with designer fittings in the bathrooms and kitchen (modular kitchen) and furniture will be ready within 15 days and that if I am interested, I could buy a fully-furnished flat at no extra cost.
The very next day, I get a call from Swastik Realtors office offering to arrange for a bank loan. Had I been a buyer, the property was worth homing in on.
Apartment visited: Swastik Realtors
Listed price: Rs 70 Lakh
Area 1,050 sq. ft
Price after bargain: Rs 70 lakh +furnishing
November 15, 2008
Rahul Sachitanand
With a clutch of software companies housed on Bangalore’s Sarjapur Ring Road, this road seems to be the best place to get my house-hunting plan started. My first stop is at Sobha Carnation, one of a line of Sobha Developers in the heart of Bangalore’s IT corridor.
My target is a three-bedroom apartment close to a clutch of MNC IT campuses, but not too far away from the centre of town. My budget—randomly fixed at Rs. 50 lakh—is already stretched. I am told that a “luxury flat” at this development will cost as much as Rs 70 lakh. “It is all about the location,” the executive says. Apparently convinced by his logic, we amble around the 2.5-acre complex, which has 216 apartments ranging in size between 1,564 and 1,725 sq. feet. Prices start around Rs 50 lakh and go all the way up to Rs 70 lakh plus, I am told.
I am still undecided. The executive now offers a “special scheme” offering an 8-10 per cent discount to “valued customers”. When I conjure up a lengthy list of developers also lining up outside my door, another 5 per cent concession is made. “But you must move quickly,” he warns.
With one study recently claiming that up to over 40,000 housing units unoccupied in Bangalore, these concessions are hardly surprising. Already there has been one big name—DLF—which has sharply cut rates at its debut project in Bangalore.
Apartment visited: Sobha Carnation
Listed price: Rs 50-70 Lakh
Area 1,564-1,725 sq. ft
Price after bargain: Rs 55-65 Lakh
