Seg­ment watch: The favoured hous­ing op­tion

In the built­up res­i­den­tial seg­ment, home buy­ers in Bathinda favour plot­ted de­vel­op­ments over apart­ments

Hindustan Times (Chandigarh) - Estates - - HT ESTATES - HT Es­tates Cor­re­spon­dent ht­es­tates@hin­dus­tan­times.com

Plots dom­i­nate the Bat hinda res­i­den­tial real es­tate mar­ket. In the city and sur­round­ing ar­eas, lan­dis rel­a­tively cheap and plots are tra­di­tional favoured. In the past few years, for home buy­ers, the hous­ing op­tions other than the plots in­creased as builders in­tro­duced new res­i­den­tial prod­ucts in the city.

“Built-up prop­er­ties in the city are the tra­di­tional kothis, apart­ments, floors and the newly-cre­ated op­tions of rel­a­tively smaller built-up houses.Ko this are avail­able all over the city, but in­most cases, ei­ther one has to buy it in the sec­ondary mar­ket, or buy a plot and self con­struct it,” says Pr aka sh Ahuja, 34, a lo­cal real­tor.

The apart­ment seg­ment op­tions are avail­able but cur­rently the de­mand is low. The built-up smaller sized houses saw a spurt in both de­mand and sup­ply in last cou­ple of years.

The hous­ing sup­ply hubs are mainly the Dab­wali, Go­ni­ana and Bar­nala roads. In the city’s pe­riph­ery( near the roads) land is rel­a­tively cheap, and most of new sup­ply of built-up prop­er­ties is tak­ing place here. Older and de­vel­oped ar­eas in the city in­clude Model Town, Veer Colony, Green Av­enue, Sushant City, Sheesh Ma­hal, Gan­pati En­clave, Tagore Na­gar, Guru Go bind Singh Na­gar, and Om axe City.

If a buyer is look­ing to con­struct his own house then he can go in for plots priced be­tween ₹5,000 per sq yard to ₹30,000 per sq yard. In the older, de­vel­oped ar­eas like Model Town prop­er­ties are priced higher than the new up­com­ing ar­eas. Prices in the pe­riph­ery are al­most half of the go­ing rate in the older de­vel­oped ar­eas.

Apart­ments gained in pop­u­lar­ity over the years, yet, th­ese lag be­hind in terms of de­mand and sup­ply. In Bathinda, the buyer re­sponse has been, at best, mix. Un­like cities like Lud­hi­ana and Ja­land­har, where a num­ber of builders are ac­tive in the seg­ment, in Bathinda there is only a cou­ple of ac­tive play­ers, both in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. Sim­i­larly, while in other cities, within the seg­ment there is a wide va­ri­ety in terms of prices, lo­ca­tions and ameni­ties, in Bat hinda, the sup­ply is mainly con­cen­trated in the bud­get and af­ford­able seg­ments.

Apart­ment prices in the city are sta­ble. For some, it is a case of over­all slow­down in the realty mar­ket, for oth­ers, ad­di­tion­ally, the seg­ment is still to be­comethe most pre­ferred op­tion for the lo­cal home buyer. Apart­ment sup­ply is avail­able both in the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors. Pub­lic sec­tor apart­ment fared poorly in terms of buyer re­sponse in com­par­i­son to pri­vate sec­tor op­tions. Most of the pub­lic sec­tor apart­ments are ly­ing va­cant. Th­ese lack ba­sic ameni­ties, and lag be­hind in con­struc­tion qual­ity, say lo­cal real es­tate ex­perts. The tra­di­tional pref­er­ence for the plot­ted prop­erty is one of the rea­sons why not many builders, lo­cal and na­tional, have en­tered the apart­ment seg­ment.

Also, say lo­cal realty ex­perts, the prices of apart­ments and the plot­ted built-up prop­er­ties are com­pa­ra­ble, so, it is tough to at­tract buy­ers for the apart­ment projects.

A 1,400 sq ft built-up house on a 200 sq yard plot is avail­able for around ₹26 lakh. Prices of the smaller built-up houses con­structed on 100 sq yard to 150 sq yard start from ₹15 lakh. Prices for apart­ment gen­er­ally vary be­tween ₹15 lakh to ₹40 lakh, de­pend­ing on the size, project, builder and lo­ca­tion. The av­er­age prices in the seg­ment vary be­tween ₹2,000 per sq ft and ₹2,500 per sq ft.

Peo­ple find land cheaper enough to con­struct a house on their own. Also, un­like cities like Chandigarh where a size able part of the pop­u­la­tion lives in rented ac­com­mo­da­tion, in the city own- er­ship to ten­ant ra­tio is vastly in the favour of the owned house seg­ment. “Though slow but con­sis­tent cre­ation of sup­ply in the apart­ment seg­ment is at­trib­uted to buy­ers re­al­is­ing the ad­van­tages of liv­ing in an apart­ment. Af­ford abil­ity, se­cu­rity and com­pact­ness are some of the mer­its of apart­ments,” says, Deepin­der Singh, 43, a lo­cal real es­tate con- sul­tant.

It is a buyer’s mar­ket. He can dic­tate terms to the seller, par­tic­u­larly, in the sec­ondary mar­ket. So, if the buyer makes a move now, he can buy prop­erty of his choice at a price he wants, say lo­cal realty ex­perts. Prices in the apart­ment seg­ment are rel­a­tively sta­ble as trad­ing vol­umes re­main low.

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