The real estate in Ahmedabad is desperately seeking signs of a revival following the recently concluded Gujarat assembly elections. What’s interesting is that despite the state government’s announcement of the metro rail passing through areas close to south and northern parts of the city, there has not been a significant rise in realty prices.
As demand for residential properties inches forward, it’s worth mentioning the quarterly figures of Residex – a special index developed by RBI to measure residential demand in the city. The latest quarterly report suggests that there has been just a 3.4 per cent jump in real estate prices in the July-September quarter. NHB has taken 2007 prices as Residex level of 100 points as the benchmark for all cities including Ahmedabad.
The marginal rise in real estate prices in the city was largely because of a 12.12 per cent rise in prices of new residential colonies in eastern parts of the city. These areas include Gomtipur, Vastral, Jhulta Minara and Old Viratnagar. On the split side, the western part of the city saw a 6.7 per cent drop in residential property prices, owing to poor demand for upper-end housing. The western part of the city includes areas like Bodakdev, Vastrapur, Bopal, Jodhpur, Ambli, Satellite, Vejalpur, Prahladnagar, Sola, Shilaj, Ambawadi, Jhundal and Chandkheda.
“The reason why one is seeing a rise in east zone prices is because investors are now parking their money in 2BHK and 1 BHK houses that are in demand and will give instant and impressive returns in the event of a slowdown. The western part of the city is devoid of such affordable housing. The BRTS corridor and the latest metro corridor route declared by the state government which takes metro to the east and north zone will only spur affordable residential clusters in these areas. These areas have now direct connectivity via metro and BRTS to GIFT, the knowledge corridor and in future, the SG Road,” says Chintan Shah, a real estate consultant in Naroda.
Real estate pundits like Cushman & Wakefield in their October report had claimed that the traditional middle-range housing and migrant population are going to set the tone of city’s real estate in the coming years. The report claimed that the city will see a fresh demand of 1.73 lakh houses between 2012 and 2016. The report claims that the present pace of real estate in Ahmedabad will churn out 51,000 houses a year. The high-end category will make up for a mere 20 per cent.
The northern part of the city like Buddhnagar, Saijpur-Bhoga, Sardarnagar and Vishnunagar have recorded just a 2.4 per cent rise in prices over the previous quarter while the central zone witnessed a rise of 1.7 per cent which includes areas like Bhadra, Dudheshwar, Gaekwad Haveli, Girdharnagar and Wadigam.
Source: The Times of India, Ahmedabad