For second home buyers from Mumbai and Pune, Lonavala is by far the favourite destination. This area is seeing a good supply pipeline of row-houses and bungalows by leading players such as Tata, Lodha, Piramal and Kalpataru. There is also a healthy demand for plots in Lonavala. The prices for row houses range from Rs 1 crore to Rs 2.5 crore, for bungalows from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 4.5 crore and for plots from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1 crore.
As a weekend getaway hill resort and second home destination, it is a national byword. And, among the most popular holiday and weekend destinations for people from Pune and Mumbai, being just 64 km from Pune city and 96 km from Mumbai. Thanks to excellent road and rail connectivity, it is often a default option. The second home market in Lonavala and Khandala is a boom story in its own right. It also has excellent boarding schools, corporate training centres, spiritual retreats, alternative medicine centres and old age homes. Quite a package of offerings for such a small town.
The development of Lonavala has both its high and low points. The high points include the introduction of numerous tourist draws such as water parks, adventure sports hubs and recently a wax museum, apart from excellent hotels and eateries. The low points would include lack of regulated development, encroachment issues in the market side and mounting infrastructure problems - especially in terms of traffic control.
Advice to buyers
Keep in mind that Lonavala is an extremely popular second home destination and calibrate your budget accordingly. Looking for the cheapest options could land you in locations and projects offering nothing in terms of natural beauty and access to entertainment. Lonavala is a hotbed for local brokers, but it is advisable to deal only with established and reputed real estate consultants. This will ensure complete transparency and that the buyer’s interests are kept paramount.
The writer is the CEO – Operations, Jones Lang LaSalle India
