The real estate market may be in a slump with developers innovating ways and means to increase sell, but the festive season seems to be bringing in good cheer for the country’s tallest tower — Lodha World One. The project backed by the HDFC, Temasek and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation have got booking worth Rs.100 crore during the Navratra.
“We have seen bookings worth Rs.100 crore during this Dussehra season at the World One project. There has been a strong pick-up in sales after a lull and with this almost 45-47 per cent of the project has been sold so far,” Abhisheck Lodha, MD, Lodha Group told a financial daily.
Interestingly the developer has got approval only for the first 90 floors and is awaiting approval for the balance 27 floors proposed for the project. “The height limitations generally placed on buildings in Mumbai would impede construction of an iconic tower such as this. We are awaiting the results of a study being conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation for the proposed height and are hopeful of a positive outcome,” said Lodha.
The company claims that the project construction is on track and international property management firms have been sounded out to manage the facility once it’s constructed. According to him since the ACC Simplex consortium — the contractor for the project will take 2.5 years before it reaches the 90th storey, there is enough time for the approvals to come through.
Lodha claims that the firm is charging 20 per cent of the apartment sale price as the booking amount and has managed to net customers who have seen that they poured 14,000 cubic metres of concrete at one go at the project site.
“Our target clientele may not be having confidence in the stock market with the wild gyrations. Similarly gold and silver have become very dicey at these levels so customers are looking at real estate as the only asset class that will deliver steady returns over a long period of time,” said Lodha.
However, analysts are keeping their fingers crossed and a senior official from Knight Frank India said that earlier sales had dropped significantly for high-end apartments but with the festive season around the sales may have increased.
“Booking of Rs.100 crore is a healthy number in this market condition. But since this is a high-end project one has to see how the apartments are priced,” said Joygopal Sanyal, National Director at Jones Lang LaSalle.
