With the Sensex taking one tumble after the other and amid a liquidity scare in the banking sector, the real estate industry is coming up with novel ways to attract a market that is slowing down.

Sources said the market has gone down, especially in the suburbs, to an extent that as opposed to 50 to 100 flats booked each day in Gurgaon this time last year, Thursday recorded not a single booking.

Therefore the freebies, say experts.

Jaypee Group has, for instance, offered a car for every flat booked at its housing projects in Noida and Greater Noida. In the Jaypee Greens project at Greater Noida, one can get a Maruti Swift, a BMW, a Mercedes or a Toyota Land Cruiser as gift, depending on the category of flats bought.

More : expressindia.com

In a bid to expand its Ramada brand of upper mid-scale hotels in India, Wyndham Group which is headquarted in the US has tied up with Bangalore-based Royal Orchid Hotels to open 10 Ramada hotels across the country.

Royal Orchid will have exclusive development rights for the Ramada brand to manage hotels across Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Wyndham Group already has 10 properties in India including Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Jaipur, Varanasi and Goa.

Under the alliance, Wyndham will offer use of the Ramada brand and market the hotels through its international sales network while Royal Orchid will manage the hotel.

More : business-standard.com

Real estate firm TDI Infrastructure plans to invest Rs300 crore in developing two township projects over the next 4-5 years.

In the next six months, we will be launching two residential townships in Indore and Meerut spread over 150 acres each. Once all regulatory issues are solved, we will start construction, TDI Infrastructure Managing Director Kamal Taneja said.

The company would invest Rs150 crore in each toward construction of the townships, he added.

More : livemint.com

The real estate developer DLF Ltd has announced plans to invest Rs 4,000 crore over a period of five years in various parts of Kerala.

The company will be looking at setting up a number of commercial projects including hotels, shopping malls and office complexes and many residential projects over the next five years, Lt. Gen. M.G. Girish (Retd), Vice-President (Kerala), DLF Homes, said at a press meet convened here to announce the launch of a mega residential project – New Town Heights – at Kakkanad in the suburbs of Kochi.

The investments involved in the new projects will be the largest by any single developer in the State and DLF will be primarily focusing on the markets of Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram for creating new projects. All its residential projects will be mega projects with a minimum of 1,500 apartments setting new benchmarks for the industry in the State, he added.

More : news.moneycontrol.co

From free all-paid trip to London to luxury car, from free 32 inch plasma TV to 10% discounts, property dealers came up with innovative offers trying to lure investors to buy land, apartments, bungalows and offices at an Expo last week. And yet few seemed to be tempted. The festive season is here. But real estate experts say that grihapravesh (house warming) ceremonies, a traditional practice, is down.

Builders say no ones buying or selling property nowadays. Property dealers talk about a sharp dip in queries for both residential homes and commercial property. And brokers claim to be unemployed for the past four months.

The situation is hardly better for the prospective buyer. Nita Khanna, a housewife from Noidas sector 30, says that she had made some short-term investments in the stock market hoping that the profits would help her buy a house. Now with the falling sensex, our dreams have crashed, she says.The US mortgage crisis leading to a virtual economic meltdown of the worlds most powerful economy seems to have reached Indian shores.

More : timesofindia.indiatimes.com

To buy or not to buy is the dilemma home seekers face as Diwali draws closer. As always, and this time too, developers have rolled out festive offers ranging from freebies to equated monthly instalments (EMI) subvention.

Realty experts, while agreeing that post-Diwali could bring some degree of clarity in its wake in the market, say postponement of a decision to buy could also see buyers miss out on choice properties such as corner plots and penthouses in select locations.

The buyers’ dilemma seems to be compounded by the high home loan interest regime. Many first time home buyers feel that prices could come down post-Diwali and a decision could be taken then due to better affordability. There are also many like Mr Virendra D. Mhaiskar, Chairman, IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd, who are sure real-estate prices will fall in the next two months.

More : thehindubusinessline.com

From paddy land to a pot of gold, Nanos new home is seeing what Singur saw two years ago — a real estate rush and skyrocketing prices.

Cars laden with brokers and property agents scouting for land lined the dusty roads of Sanand, 35km west of Ahmedabad, a day after Ratan Tata announced that the small-car plant would be relocated here. The government has handed over to the Tatas 1,100 acres of land, which was with the Anand Agricultural University and used for cattle grazing.

Govindbhai Dodar, a real estate agent who claims to have handled queries from dozens of people eager to buy plots near the site, said land prices had gone up 500 per cent in the past 24 hours.

More : telegraphindia.com

Haryana might boast having approval for over 50 special economic zones, but the state has a long way to go. Even land acquisition is yet to commence for some of the projects.

Of all the SEZs, five will be set up by private players in synergy with the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC). These are the Reliance Haryana SEZ at Gurgaon and Jhajjar, DLF SEZ at Gurgaon and Ambala, and Unitech SEZ at Kundli, near Sonepat.

The joint venture agreement between Reliance Ventures Ltd (a 100 per cent subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd) and the HSIIDC was signed on June 19, 2006, for setting up a multi-product mega special economic zone over 25,000 acres in Gurgaon-Jhajjar in Haryana (that was later bi-furcated into two SEZs — 12,500 acres at Gurgaon and 12,500 acres at Jhajjar). The HSIIDC got 10 per cent sweat equity in these projects and contributed 1,086 acres from its own land bank.

More : business-standard.com

Real estate prices in and around Chharodi in Ahmedabad district have almost doubled overnight after Tata Motors decided to relocate its prestigious Nano project from Singur in West Bengal to Gujarat even as experts feel that the gain was only notional as no deals have been struck so far.

In Chharodi, where the Tatas mother plant will come up, farmers are demanding Rs 8-10 lakh per bigah, almost double from Rs 3-4 lakh per bigah before news of the Nano relocation, said Maharaja Jayshivsinh, the erstwhile prince of Sanand and one of the largest landowners in the area.

However, these prices are unrealistic and investors are ready to offer only Rs 5-6 lakh per bigah. In nearby Sanand area, the prices today are Rs 3,000 per sq yard, up from Rs 2,500 per sq yard earlier. The realistic price rise would be about 40 per cent, he said.

More : business-standard.com

Gujarat may have missed the IT/ITES bus earlier, but the two upcoming IT/ITES SEZs by K Raheja Corp and DLF are all set to drive the growth of the industry here. As many as 50 companies are likely to set up shops in the two parks coming up in Gandhinagar.

Leading IT players like IBM, Oracle, Syntel, Accenture, Patni Computers and CSC are exploring the state for setting up their operations in the SEZ area, according to sources in state government. We are aiming to draw companies like GE, IBM, Cognizant, Genpact, Mphasis and Symantec who have been our clients, said an official of DLF on conditions of annonymity.

Apart from software companies, financial institutions and banks like HSBC, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Otis, Meryll Lynch, Deutsche Bank, HCFC, Countrywide, many of which are clients of K Raheja Corp, are also looking at the state for setting up their operations, said sources close to the development. K Raheja Corps Mindspace IT SEZ is coming up in a sprawling space of over 97 acres at Koba near Gandhinagar for an estimated investment of Rs 1200-1500 crore. The phase one of the project will be completed early next year and space will be available for possession from January onwards.

More : business-standard.com