 "Luxury home")
Call it a cut in prices of apartments, slash in stamp duty last year, spike in online/offline content on over-the-top platforms, or booming stock markets, but there has been a spurt in the purchase of luxury homes by actors and corporate czars in Mumbai since 2021.
Early this week, actor Madhuri Dixit made headlines for buying an apartment for Rs 48 crore in the plush Indiabulls Blu property in Worli.
Such large property deals, adding up to as much as Rs 1,921 crore in total, have been undertaken by actors and corporate chieftains in Mumbai alone, according to data aggregated by IndexTap — a real estate data portal tracking big-ticket property deals.
“Year 2021 was exceptional. Developers had cut prices in luxury projects due to high unsold inventory. Lower interest rates and a cut in stamp duty attracted homebuyers. Tinsel town has seen a massive influx of online and offline content, thanks to Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc,” said Abhishek Kiran Gupta, CEO, IndexTap and CRE Matrix.
The Maharashtra government had cut stamp duty on sale deed documents by 3 per cent between September 1 and December 31 of 2020. The relaxation continued with a 2 per cent cut from January 1 to March 31 of 2021.
Among deals by actors, Ranveer Singh and his father’s firm Oh Five Oh Media Works bought a sea-facing quadruplex in Bandra for Rs 119 crore, in one of the most expensive residential deals in the country this July. The stamp duty itself was Rs 5.34 crore.
In another instance, actor Ayushmann Khurrana bought two apartments in Lokhand-wala Complex in Andheri West. One measuring 2,282 square (sq.) feet (ft) was bought for Rs 11 crore, the other measuring 1,745 sq. ft was purchased for Rs 8.3 crore.
Film stars are not only channelling their A-list wealth into real estate, but also selling homes to book profits. Actor Arjun Kapoor sold a 5,229 sq. ft flat in Bandra West for Rs 16 crore this May. Actor Akshay Kumar sold a 119 sq metres or 1,280 sq. ft apartment in Andheri West for Rs 6 crore to music director Daboo Malik in August.
In Mumbai, the celebrity favourite locations are the sea-facing areas of Juhu, Bandra, and Worli.
Given a flurry of luxury residential sales, prices have seen an appreciation — ranging between 10 per cent and 30 per cent — depending on individual projects, said Gupta. For example, Three Sixty West, a mixed-use development located in Prabhadevi, was trading at Rs 65,000-70,000 per sq. ft before receipt of the occupation certificate (OC) from the municipal authority. After OC, the price has risen to Rs 85,000-90,000 per sq. ft, said Gupta.
In April 2021, Radhakishan Damani, the promoter of DMart, and his brother Gopikishan closed one of the biggest property deals that had them fork out Rs 1,001 crore for an independent house in the ritzy Malabar Hill.
DMart’s CEO Ignatius Navil Noronha and his wife Kajal bought two luxury flats in Rustomjee Seasons in Bandra East area for Rs 66.24 crore this year. The duo paid a stamp duty of over Rs 4 crore. The properties were registered in July this year.
Achal Bakeri, chairman and MD of Symphony, paid Rs 72.85 crore for a flat in Oberoi Realty’s Three Sixty West in Worli, reports said early this month. IGE (India) has bought two luxury apartments overlooking the sea, spread across an area of 16,000 sq. ft in South Mumbai’s Three Sixty West for Rs 151 crore Ravi and Neel Raheja, promoters and group presidents of real estate firm K Raheja, recently bought an independent property in the Santacruz-Juhu area for Rs 265 crore.
“In the past two years, housing sales in key luxury markets in Mumbai have seen significant momentum, largely because the overall cost of acquisition of property has gone down with developer offers and discounts and limited period stamp duty cuts. Also, real estate investment during the pandemic was considered most risk-free and lucrative,” said Prashant Thakur, senior director and head of research at Anarock Property Consultants.
Developers have consciously kept prices under check, notwithstanding robust sales, observed Thakur.
Although not as frequently as Mumbai, the Delhi property market, too, has seen some big-ticket deals in the past few years by corporate honchos.
Rajan Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director of Bharti Enterprises, bought a 1,200-square yard property at Delhi’s Shanti Niketan for around Rs 85 crore late last year. He also sold a property for Rs 45 crore in May this year in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar.
Shekhar Bajaj of Bajaj Electricals and his family, Siddharth Jain of Inox, wife of Videocon Group heir (Anirudh Dhoot) Pooja Dhoot, and Shailesh Dalmia and his wife Natasha have bought properties in the recent past.
According to a recent survey by Sotheby’s International Realty, a majority of high networth individuals in India plan to buy luxury residential real estate in the next two years, reflecting a strong and decisive turnaround in the luxury real estate segment. The main reason for purchasing property during the pandemic is a “lifestyle upgrade”, it said.
