Realty market Mumbai

Now Mumbai is seeking to amend its more than 24 year old building rules which will allow slums to mushroom and it will keep housing beyond the reach of most of more than 19 million residents. As we all know the fact that world’s second-most densely populated mega city is the part of the prime minister’s “Housing for All” programme in which more than 20 million new homes will be available in all over India by the end of 2022 to help eliminate urban slums and squalor.

According to theory of experts, in real estate market the supply of apartments should increase with cut or discount in property prices to help India’s financial capital emulate wealthy peers including New York and Shanghai. This island-city has little available land for development and it is promising challenge to its floor space index (FSI) regulations that may permit developers to tear down old structures and build skyscrapers. It could be good news for some real estate developers such as; Sunteck Realty, Godrej Properties, Peninsula Land and Oberoi Realty as per the reports of Edelweiss Financial Services.

As per the statement of Vyomesh M. Shah, Managing Director of Hubtown, which is Mumbai based developer house, it is the only way to solve the perennial housing shortage in this city, where most of the people are living in pigeonhole-size apartments. Recently, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai has proposed to increase the FSI, to range between 2 and 8, compared with an earlier cap of 1.33. FSI determines the maximum floor area allowed in a building relative to the land on which it is erected. In 1964, when first time it was introduced than it was set on the cap of 4.5, which means on a one acre (0.4 hectare) plot of land, which is little smaller than a football field, living space totaling only 196,000 square feet could be built. However in 1991, policy makers make it low as 1.33 times, which was a move contrary to what most cities with limited land have tended to do for raising the permitted FSI to accommodate demand of real estate, as in Singapore, HongKong, Manhattan and some Chinese cities.

The proposed change will allow for variable building heights depending on consumption patterns, location and logistics. In past FSI was acting as the tool to limit the congestion in Mumbai, but under the new plan it is designed primarily to be a tool to manage physical development of Mumbai by laying out uniform rules, so that each and every location in Mumbai can provide good connectivity with other parts, said Aashiesh Agarwaal, an analyst at Edelweiss Securities. The more he added that now we are seek to address key lacunae impacting Mumbai’s real estate sector.

Real estate developers are stepping in right direction and its positive sign with strong governance, brand and execution capabilities. Most of the proposals are available for public comments after which final regulations will be released, which could be as late as end-2015. The S&P BSE India Realty Index has noticed the growth of 15 per cent in 2015 whereas; compared with the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex its 7.6 per cent gain. However; the Oberoi Reality which is country’s second-largest real estate developer by value climbed 13 per cent in the period while Godrej Properties added 16 per cent.

Selling real estate property online

In the era of internet when things are just click away; there are many traditional businesses which are facing tough competitions from those who have strong presence on internet. In present, real estate websites firms are making a daunting leap into e-commerce business. Snapdeal and Housing.com, both are backed by Japan’s Softbank, and now they are building technology and teams to sell real estate properties online to tap India’s billion-dollar real estate market.

To instill customer trust in high-risk environment, the companies are banking on wealth of data, brand recognition and offline partners. It is just because the lack of a focused realty technology product, which is selling real estate online hadn’t picked up. One of the Mumbai based company has sold 115 apartments online for Tata Value Homes and had generated the gross merchandise value of at Rs 50 crore over five days of period. One of the least website also launched a technology known as ‘Slice View’, which allows users to go through each floor of a building project; hovering over a particular flat shows availability and built-up area.

Business plan of Housing.com and Snapdeal to sale apartments online:

For current year, Housing.com already has 500 builder campaigns in the pipeline. According to Advitiya Sharma, who is co-founder of Housing.com, “Selling houses online isn’t an easy problem to solve”. Snapdeal, also have aggressive plan to sell new real estate projects on its website. The marketplace was the first to sell Tata Value Home projects online, in September. According to Amit Maheshwari, Vice-president at Snapdeal, “We are going very deep into the real estate category after capturing major market share in mobile phones to clothes and jewellery market”.

According to some of the experts, selling real estate property online is a different ball game, whereas; real estate transactions should be handled by the growing number of online real estate sites. The nature and function of consumer products and real estate is different and it is not in the match with Snapdeal’s core competence, said Sunil Wattal, who teaches management information systems at Temple University in the US. However; Amit Maheshwari, said that the differentiator for Snapdeal is its scale. “We will bring much more visibility and customer footfall to real estate developers. That translates into economies of scale and we pass over benefits to our customers.”

As per the Co-founder of Helion Venture Partners and a member on Housing.com’s board, Mr. Ashish Gupta, “Housing takes on some of a broker’s or agent’s responsibility, which is good because most people do not trust brokers or agents and technology can help to break these things.” However, not all realty websites are rushing to sell real estate properties online.”We will empower the customers with expert locality insights and exhaustive listings of properties,” said CommonFloor.com co-founder Sumit Jain.

Real estate infrastructure at Ghodbunder

Real estate market along the stretch from Thane to the Central Business District of Belapur is on the boil. Price appreciation is the order of the day and hence those who had prudence to invest in the nick of time have every reason to cheer.

Development of physical infrastructure in Ghodbunder Road, Kolshet Road, Airoli, Majiwada, Ghansoli, Vasant Vihar or Vashi to an expanding job market, and from the metro rail to better connectivity to the upcoming commercial markets, the real estate market expects a positive impact in times to come.

This impact is clearly visible in the capital values of the residential areas of Thane, Kalyan, Badlapur, Vashi and other suburbs, indicates data over the last two years, all these areas have reported a rise in capital values in the range of Rs 650-3500 per sq ft, depending upon the location.

Investors have been banking on the numerous upcoming infrastructure projects, one of them being the metro rail network. Deepak M, consultant at Shri Sai Property Consultants, says, “Of late, Thane has been a fast-moving market. Buyers have the benefit of sound living standards and almost half the price it would take to live in Mumbai. Most buyers also foresee property prices going up.” Initially, while it would have taken close to 50 minutes to commute to Mumbai, with the metro, the time taken would be down to 20 minutes. This positively impacts the property markets of Vasant Vihar, Majiwada, Pokhran Road 1 and 2 as well as Ghodbunder Road and Hiranandani Estate.

Shiva Patil, a local realtor in Thane, informs, “Majiwada Junction Flyover cuts across the busiest routes of Thane. Strategically planned, commuters from Mumbai would have easy access to Kalyan. This flyover, already half operational, facilitates to and fro connectivity to Mumbai, Nashik and other areas where most of the economic drivers are.” So, whether you are working in Borivali, Malad or Mulund, the three flyovers planned here, are getting developed in phases and will facilitate travel. By easing connectivity, Majiwada also opens investment options in the region. With capital values slowly picking up, most residential pockets in Thane would see more number of takers.