Track2Realty Exclusive: As humans, our primary need is to stay connected and clubs are one place where we can meet like-minded people and exchange thoughts and ideas while having a good time. Track2Realty explores how this change of taste is giving conventional need of housing a new paradigm shift where a club is not just important, but essential component of a housing project.
Construction quality may have become poor, interiors & decors have gone fancy; flats have been shrinking in size, clubs & gyms have become necessity. It seems the discerning home buyers’ choice is distinctly different from what it only recently used to be and the developers’ aspirational offerings are fast changing the taste of the home buyers.
Is this only the reflection of change in the psyche of urban India which the developers are encashing upon or the housing and urban living has metamorphosed into the next level of progression where a club is as important a component along with the house as say a kitchen?
Once seen as a colonial legacy and a culture of elite class, the real estate boom in India has redefined the club culture in this part of the world. With the Indian cities largely seeing influx of nuclear families, the need for socialising activity, evening get together with drinks and gossip, or a quick session of pool game is leading to more clubs gaining in popularity among people from various age and income groups.
It started in late nineties when a lot of independent houses in the cities were bought by people who shifted in with families. Therefore, the middle age group started getting the memberships in the older clubs.
However, the young executives who moved in independent flats needed newer clubs for them. Thus, came a new culture of club in cities where the membership in various clubs were given on the basis of proximity to ensure that the members don’t have to travel much to reach the club.
The real estate developers soon found an opportunity since the average age of buying a flat was increasingly coming down and young working professionals were the catalysts to home finance.
The realty market leader DLF that conceptualised the “walk to work” in Gurgaon believes it is a necessity than fancy innovation to come up with a club in each of the housing project since profile of today’s home buyers is different from previous generation.
“I take it as a natural progression of urban development and that is how DLF has channelized the process of urban land development. When we conceptualised the concept of walk-to-work, we were conscious of the fact that along with residential solutions, shopping zones and work place, people also need a social space with sports and other leisure facilities within the project. The vision has been to provide life style needs of urban Indians and hence the real estate has started redefining the concept of clubs. While we have made some of the best state-of-art clubs across our projects, DLF will definitely raise the bar and some more innovative clubs will be developed in time to come,” says DLF spokesperson Sanjey Roy.
…to be continued
