The demand for residential realty projects in Kolkata has gained momentum over the past few months, after battling a phase of slowdown. With the lower interest rates and introduction of affordable housing segment, potential buyers have started showing interest in the residential sector once again. Besides, the government’s stimulus packages, marginal improvement in economic condition and steady recovery in the share market, have indeed helped the residential realty sector to be back on its feet. In fact, the city’s housing market started looking up from April 2009 and has not regressed since. Property demand The entire stretch between Tollygunge and Garia along the Netaji Subash Chandra (NSC) Bose Road enjoyed a spurt of residential activities, since the commissioning of the Kolkata Metro Rail in 1991. Easy accessibility following the September 2009 inauguration of the metro rail up to Garia, coupled with the availability of land parcel, is expected to further boost the pace of construction of realty projects and influence the pricing in the near future. Of late, Enquiries for high-end luxury projects, which were launched in places such as Alipore and Ballygunge in 2008, have also started picking up since May 2009. Demand for properties in Rajarhat witnessed sluggish growth, when compared with the two aforementioned locations. However, realty sales in Rajarhat started moving up from October 2009. The Kolkata residential sector has consistently been an end-user driven market. This current increase in property demand has been primarily due to positive sentiments prevailing among the city’s residents, especially the younger generation. With increasing purchasing power at their disposal, the youth, particularly belonging to the middle income group (MIG) and lower income group (LIG) segments, are currently driving the realty market in Kolkata. However, still there is a substantial gap between the demand and supply of MIG and LIG housing in the city. Property prices Kolkata property market has hardly witnessed any significant fluctuation in prices between October 2008 and March 2009. Property prices in the city started rising since the third quarter of 2009-10, especially in areas such as It is expected that realty prices will go up by 5-10% in the MIG and upper MIG segments in 2010. Demand and prices in the premium segment are likely to remain stagnant up to the first quarter of 2010. Peripheral areas are likely to witness more new large projects in the sub-20 lakh category. Affordable housing on the rise With the real estate market looking up at present, city-based developers are launching or firming up plans to build new projects, especially in the affordable housing segment. For instance, TATA Housing came up with their affordable housing project, ‘Eden Court’, at New Town, Rajarhat in the first quarter of 2009-10. Following them, reputed developers such as Godrej Properties and Unitech launched two more affordable projects namely ‘Godrej Prakriti’ on Pawan Agarwal, director of NK Realtors, a leading realty firm in Kolkata |
