By Monika Tripathy
Nageshwar Rao raised his apartment’s rent from Rs 15,000 to Rs 18,000 last month, put up a ‘To Let’ sign on the main gate of his building located in Madhapur and waited patiently for calls. By evening, he had three interested parties, none of whom quibbled about the rent. That there were concerns about rents and realty taking a beating because of the ‘T’ trouble were certainly not visible in Rao’s dealing with his prospective tenant. The demand, he said, had put house owners like him on the driver’s seat.
In fact, the rents in the area have only been rising at a luxurious rate of Rs 3,000 per annum. “The apartment we were living in cost us Rs 9,000 a year ago. Now, the same apartment costs us Rs 12,500,” said Dashmeet Kaur, an IT professional, about her apartment in Arunodaya Colony of Madhapur, whose house owner is clearly keeping up with the prevailing market rate.
Owners of residential complexes here say that more than the Telangana agitation, business trends influence the property market in the area. “Rents for flats that were fixed at Rs 40,000 dropped to Rs 28,000 during the economic recession. But the rents bounced back to Rs 35,000 and with the increase in demand, we are expecting it to go up to Rs 40,000 soon. The number of people coming to the area has remained constant and has not been affected by the ongoing Telangana issues,” said an official of the Nectar Garden Owner’s Society, a premium housing venture in Hi-Tec City.
Realtors attribute the unaffected rentals to the continued demand for office space in Hi-Tec City and IT industry barons credit it to massive recruitments, the ‘T’ trouble notwithstanding. Sample this: an approximate 3.5 million sq ft of land space was developed and occupied by corporations in the area in the last one year. IT industry seniors peg a corresponding surge in the number of employees which has fuelled the demand for housing. “We have not seen a slump in the demand for the ‘ready-to-move-in’ apartments, except during the recession. But the recovery in the last two years has got everything back in shape and the Telangana agitation has not really affected the demand, nor the rents,” said Madhav Veeravali, a realtor.
Although the rents in the area may have shot through the roof, buyers also remain cautious about making new investments in the area. “The agitation has kept the prices of the land at a repressed level. People are more cautious before investing in land and property as they do not see much appreciation,” said BVP Raju, promoter, Ghar4U Solutions, Pvt. Limited.
Nevertheless, the demand for furnished homes is on the rise, be it rented or properties for sale. This they say is due to the ‘convenience’ factor. “The demand for the move-in apartments is still very high in this part of the city. The built up value for a flat we showed had shot up from Rs 3,200 per sq ft to Rs 5,000 per sq ft,” said Raju. [TNN]