Slowdown in the realty market @ Coimbatore
With at least three IT SEZs sanctioned so far and almost all the engineering majors scaling up their investments and a slew of commercial projects in the pipeline, Coimbatore has turned out to be the most favoured tier-II city on the real estate front. In the last three to four years, the texcity is seeing tremendous growth in construction activity (both residential and commercial) and the value of land is appreciating. Of late, however, the sector is said to be witnessing a downtrend with many projects proceeding behind schedule. While some realtors don’t see the future too optimistic with many of the proposed projects yet to see any concrete development, others maintain that investor-appetite is still strong for this city.The proposed IT park by Elcot is said to be facing some infrastructure hurdles while the Food & Entertainment Centre and multiplex planned by Zee Group on Avinashi Road are likely to run behind schedule, sources said. Ditto for housing projects. Some projects that were expected to trigger housing demand are yet to take off. Jain Housing that planned to launch its Jain Surabhi on Avinashi Road is relaunching it as Cambrae East while the integrated township proposed by Singapore-based Jurong Metro Corp is yet to see progress. Sources at the Builders’ Association of India, Coimbatore, say there has been a lull these days and almost 60% of the projects have no takers. According to the district registrar’s office, there had been a slight increase in the number of documents registered between January and July but have slowed down after April.
The demand for loans has slowed down due to rising property prices and high interest rates. “High property prices are the main reasons for a slowdown in the realty market since this April,” a banker told.“There was a mad rush for space initially but now it has cooled down. This cannot be perceived as a negative trend; just that it is stagnant for a while. The city’s real estate market will grow but in a more cautious and slightly slow manner,” said G Srinivasan, chairman, BAI, Coimbatore Chapter.
