Ittina Group ups its sights

Buoyed by the high demand for real estate in Bangalore, the Ittina Group which until now focussed on low-end apartments is sprucing up its luxury homes plans and entering the serviced apartments segment.

The group moving beyond the under Rs 15 lakh bracket, has firmed plans to set up apartments in the RS 25 lakh to Rs 2 crore category.

It is also betting on the services segment. Under the proposed project "� Ittina Akkala "� it will have 440 serviced apartments spread across 10 blocks to cater to the needs of firms in Electronic City, ITPL and other firms in the surrounding areas.

Ittina Group, the Bangalore-based property developer, has been developing flats mainly aimed at the "middle class", unlike many of the developers who go in for higher-end flats.

Thanks to this focus on low-end flats, it has Rs 350 crore worth projects in various stages of completion. This is in addition to the eight projects that is has delivered so far.

Till recently Ittina had flats selling for as low as Rs 4 lakh. This focus will continue as well.

"The reason we tried to tap this section of the market was that there was no competition from the organised big players," said managing director of Ittina I Mahabaleswarappa. The move to offer higher-end flats was that they give better returns, he said.

Its biggest project till today, the Ittina Neela near Bommasandra, has 1,112 flats. They are priced from Rs 7 lakh to Rs 12 lakh.

While at the outset Ittina wanted to peg their lowest priced flats in the Neela at Rs 4 lakh, cost overruns due to the rising input costs and other factors raised the price of the lower-end flats to Rs 7 lakh. "On an average the price rise was 30 per cent," said an Ittina source.

Though the new offerings are relatively low priced, they boast facilities often associated with higher-end flats like health club, gym, jogging track, power back-up for common area and security.

There will also be shuttle services to Bommasandra, Electronic City and SIPCOT (an industrial area on the TN border), he added. The first project of Ittina was launched in 2001 for just Rs 2 lakh and above. Ittina was then testing the waters with the offering.