Few takers for Gurgaon luxury homes

Despite a string of booster doses given by the Union finance ministry recently, the luxury segment of real estate market has not seen any upward spiral in Gurgaon.

Several luxury residential projects are finding it hard to woo buyers. “The Tatvam Villas project on Sohna Road is not evincing any interest among buyers. Similarly, another project, Pioneer Araya in Sector 62, by M3M (primarily deals in the luxury segment) is getting cold response from prospective buyers,” said a Gurgaon-based senior real estate consultant.

Some blame it on long delay in delivery of real estate projects. Lack of demand has also led to a steep decline in prices of luxury homes. “At several places, price correction has happened in the range of 5 to 15 per cent. The luxury market has affected severely because of this,” Anckur Srivasttava, chairperson of GenReal Property Advisers, said.

Richa Karpe, co-founder of Altamount Capital, which gives investment advice to corporate and individual clients, said: “The stagnation has happened because of the overkill. Multiple luxury projects are coming up within a short distance of four to five kilometres.

There is not so much demand for them as these developers had anticipated. Another reason is invariable delay by developers. When a project normally takes three to four years, investors want to follow the wait-and-watch policy instead of blocking huge sums of money in the projects, which tend to cross one deadline after another.”

However, there is fairly a good demand for properties in the mid-segment in the Millenium City. “Properties under Rs 8,000 per sq ft are still in demand. One developer recently sold over 400 out of 515 units,” the expert said.

Groundwater shortage adds to woes

Tata Housing recently sent emails to its customers for the expected delay owing to scarcity of water. The mail — referring to its luxury project ‘Primanti’ set to come up in Gurgaon Sector 72, says: “Authorities in Gurgaon have put restrictions on extraction of groundwater through borewells, due to which we are forced to procure water through tankers.

The cost of such water procured has gone up considerably; it is still not easily available even when one is willing to pay for it... in light of this unforeseen situation, at this point of time, we are anticipating a delay of at least three to four months.”