Sanjay Chugh
Bangalore has been the fastest-growing city of India since the past few decades. IT has been the major growth driver and is responsible for aggressive real estate development in the city. Bangalore has a multi-cultural population with good social infrastructure,excellent educational institutes and constantly upgrading physical infrastructure. Currently,the most promising residential micro-markets are Outer Ring Road (ORR),Sarjapur Road,Whitefield and northern parts of the city.
Luxury Residential: Bangalore is the third-largest hub for high net worth individuals (HNIs). It is estimated to be home to over 10,000 individual dollar millionaires and has a large base of expatriates. There has been increased demand for high-end residential apartments in the city,particularly in the central business district (CBD),secondary business district (SBD),Whitefield,north Bangalore and Outer Ring Road (ORR) sub-markets. This demand is expected to be steady over the short-term.
Bangalore is one of the most promising markets for villa projects in India. Villa and row house developments are most active in the north,ORR,Sarjapur Road and Whitefield micro-markets.
Mid-Income Housing: This segment is mainly driven by individuals working in the IT and ITeS industry. The main driving factors for this segment are social infrastructure,proximity to workplaces,good physical infrastructure and access to medical and educational facilities. Micro-markets such as Whitefield,the ORR IT corridor,Electronic City and few areas in north Bangalore have witnessed a steady demand from the mid-income segment.
Affordable Housing: The demand from this segment comes from extremely price sensitive buyers therefore,affordable projects are developed in the suburbs as these areas offer large land parcels at lower acquisition costs. Areas such as Mysore Road,Hosur Road,Kanakapura Road etc. have witnessed high demand for this segment.
The affordable housing concept has gained ground in Bangalore mainly due to a few graded developers like Purvankara,Brigade Group,Shriram Properties,Golden Gate Properties,Ozone Group and Nitesh Estates who are focusing their projects for this customer segment. In most cases,housing units are made affordable by reduced sizes,compromising on civic amenities and other USPs which were typically provided as differentiators to the competing projects.
Further,the planned Metro Rail and Peripheral Ring Road have increased the demand on the outskirts of Bangalore. VBHC Attibele and Patel Neo Town in south Bangalore,Provident Welworth and Sovereign Lakefront in the north of the city,and Provident Sunworth and VBHC Kengeri in west Bangalore are some of the affordable housing projects in the city.
With increased demand,affordable housing projects have witnessed an increase in capital values and are now priced higher than or similar to mid-income projects. These projects have also seen substantial rise in capital values because of increased cost of land acquisition and construction.
Developers have therefore resorted to redesigning their projects to address the demand of a wider target segment looking at the budget homes category. Major national level players and local developers have plans to enter the affordable housing segment of Bangalore. These include Tata Housing,Usha Breco Realty,Godrej Properties,Ashoka Group,Jannaadhar Construction,CSC Builders,Brigade Group,etc.
Overall Demand Scenario: The Bangalore market saw absorption of 6,519 units in the second quarter of FY13 against 6,689 units in the previous quarter. Unsold stock in during the quarter totalled 50,184 units as compared to 46,823 in the previous quarter,reflecting a vacancy rate of 53.4 per cent,down from 54.2 per cent the previous quarter.
Supply: A total of 21 residential projects were launched across Bangalore in the second quarter,offering 9,889 units against 10,009 units in the previous quarter. Meanwhile,eight residential projects comprising 2,319 units in various sub-markets were completely sold out. The major projects launched during this period included Prestige Sunrise,Prestige Ivy Terraces,Shriram Sameeksha,Sobha Santorini and Brigade Begonia.
CBD & SBD: Low supply and high demand. Due to low availability of large land parcels and high capital values,these micro-markets have seen a limited supply of residential developments. These markets have very good social and physical infrastructure. Nitesh Park Avenue,Prestige Kingfisher Towers,Westcourt Cityview,ETA Beau Monde,77 Degrees East,Sobha Indraprastha and Prestige Edwardian are some of the high-end projects in these micro-markets.
The author is head-residential services,(Bangalore & Chennai),Jones Lang LaSalle India