The sales brochure offers you the opportunity to own Mumbai’s first managed private residences with a “lifestyle elevated up to the sky”. At Rs 28,000 per square foot plus other charges, Indiabulls Sky is also promising a 65-storey “marvel with opulent apartments, timeless luxury and impeccable butler service”.
Indiabulls Real Estate, which has sold one-third of the apartments since the Lower Parel project was launched in the last one month, now says it will be selective in selling the remaining apartments to create a “classy neighbourhood”.
Apartments boasting the tags luxury and super-luxury — the two words forgotten in the real estate world in the last two years — are back with a bang over the last three months. What has brought back buyers this time is the fact that prices are much more reasonable than in 2006-07, when the same kind of apartment would have had an asking price at least 30 per cent higher.
Orbit Terraces, a luxury housing project by realty developer Orbit Corporation, also in Lower Parel, saw around 300 buyers making enquiries for 75 to 80 apartments when it was launched last week. The apartments in the project, which include duplexes with attached terraces, cost Rs 3.3 crore to Rs 6.6 crore for apartments ranging from 1,500 sq ft to 3,000 sq ft.
A host of other developers are also cashing in on what they call the new-found confidence among buyers. Take Mumbai-based Lodha Developers. The company, which used to sell two or three luxury apartments a month in south Mumbai till December last year, now sells 15 to 20 units a month, a top company official says. It has several projects such as Lodha Bellisimo, Lodha Primero, Chateau Paradise, among others, in South Mumbai.
And despite raising prices at the Lodha Primero project in Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi area 30 per cent, the developer has been able to sell 90 per cent of the apartments in the last one month.
"The luxury market was hit hard during the downturn. But sales have definitely picked up since March as the economy is on an upswing,'' says R Karthik, senior vice-president of marketing at Lodha Developers.
The rush for super-luxury isn’t restricted to the country’s commercial capital. In Hyderabad, for example, at least eight builders are developing multiple projects, under which each villa or a bungalow is priced around Rs 4 crore.
Sunish Tom, head of Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) Information Services India events and promotions, says there is a huge demand for exclusive, custom-built luxury houses.
D&B recently conducted Millionaire Homes 2009 in Hyderabad, a platform to introduce prospective buyers to property developers. At least 2,000 people have expressed an interest in evaluating luxury properties. Similar events have already been held at Chennai and Bangalore.
Ravi Sharma, deputy general manager (sales) of Lodha Group, which sold its luxury properties by invitation, says the company has identified 5,000 high net worth individuals in Hyderabad. “We do customer profiling before extending an invitation,'' he said.
The group sold 108 units of the 120 built in Phase I, due delivery in July 2011. Each unit was priced between Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 3 crore. The group plans to begin its second phase in four months. “There is demand for luxury homes. Most buyers want to stay in them and not see them as mere investment channels,'' Sharma said.
What defines luxury is changing rapidly. “Golf is the USP for us. There is a huge appetite for this kind of project,”' said Masood, managing director, Dax Properties, a subsidiary of Country Side.
Dax is coming up with a golf-centric villa project at Shadnagar (on the Bangalore highway), about 50 km from Hyderabad, covering 300 acres. It will have villas and villa plots ranging from 5,000 sq ft to 15,000 sq ft. In all, it plans to construct 1,000 villas in three phases including 250 villas in the first phase.
“The project is approved and the construction will start shortly,'' says Masood, adding that the project cost will be around Rs 500 crore.
Vipul Bansal, joint managing director of Indiabulls Real Estate, says the luxury segment was largely insulated from the economic slowdown. “The main reason for buyers staying away was that there was hardly any stock of high-end products in places such as south Mumbai,'' he says.
But analysts say the segment is seeing traction once again only because of aggressive pricing by developers. "Basically, it’s a question of keeping something on the table for buyers who need the comfort that they are buying a property that has scope for a 30 to 40 per cent increase after two or three years,'' says Raminder Grover, chief executive of Homebay Residential, a unit of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, an international property consultant.
Some developers agree. "Though sentiment and pricing have improved, if you increase prices by 10 to 15 per cent, products cannot be sold as easily as you sell them today,'' says Ramashraya Yadav, head of finance at Orbit Corp.
According to Aditi Vijayakar, director of residential services at Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate consultancy firm, self employed people and businessman form the major chunk of new home buyers. That may not be surprising, since increments for salaried people are still subdued in Indian companies.
Buoyed by the new-found demand, many developers are planning new luxury launches. Orbit is planning one in Lower Parel during Diwali and another one in Andheri after Diwali, while Lodha is planning two more luxury projects in Mumbai shortly.
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