Ahmedabad

A group of builders has held out new hope for house buyers who don’t have deep pockets. These are low-priced apartments with a price range of Rs 7 to Rs 12 lakh. The builders may be few in number, but the opportunities they hold out is for plenty. And, this emerging trend has already made its mark. The national housing bank (NHB) the housing finance regulator of the country has listed 25-odd schemes in the country spread across seven states that are targeted at this non-frill segment, which caters to houses that are built on a little more than 60 square yards.

Ahmedabad is second only to Mumbai with six schemes. Mumbai with a population more than 1.5 crore has 10 schemes. The other places are Pune, Nagpur, Bhiwadi and Bangalore with two schemes each.

Uday Bhatt of Galaxy group, which figures in the NHB list says, “As a strategy we go for land that does not fall under a town planning scheme (TP). This saves us money on the land deduction of 40 per cent by Auda or AMC. In turn reducing the cost. Our houses in Ahmedabad are on gamtal land. As a strategy we also go for underdeveloped areas. We have houses in the range of Rs 5 lakh, Rs 7 lakh and Rs 9 lakh. We are planning the 1,500 homes in Maneja in Vadodara, work on which would start next month and following this in Surat as well.”

Also in the NHB list, Dharmdev construction has the project for 1,500 to 1,800 houses in the Rs 6 to Rs 20 lakh range as the New Maninagar apartments. “Our focus has been the sheer number of people with incomes between Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 a month and who can afford to take bank loans of Rs 3 to Rs 5 lakh at prevailing rates. Generally banks are scared to extend loans to this segment as the buyers are from unorganised sector. We are planning the same projects in Ranip, Vasna, Narol and Naroda. Our advantage in this segment is that there are really few players and we are making the most of it,” Umang Thakkar, owner of Dharmdev constructions.

But why would a developer get into this segment with squeezed profit margins, which may range between 10-12 per cent? “The reason is the sheer size of the market. It’s a high volume low margin business. Since there is lot of demand sales are quick when compared to selling a Rs 40 lakh apartment in west Ahmedabad. Though in plush apartments there are margin of at least 40%, sales drags. Not in the affordable housing segment,” said Suresh Patel, president of Gujarat Institute of Housing and Estate Development (GIHED).

Gurgaon-based SAS group is planning construction of three to 10 lakh homes across the country, including a scheme in Surat in affordable housing segment. SAS plans to invest nearly Rs 11 lakh crore in the affordable housing segment in the coming few years, industry experts say.

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