Realty News Roundup: Survey Seeks More Investment In Smart Building Technologies; APJ Kalam Advocates Low Cost Technology For Homes

Realty News Roundup is PropGuide's selection of top stories from the real estate sector

A new survey by Honeywell has said that the government, building owners and service providers need to invest more in smart building technologies to serve the rapidly urbanising population. The survey conducted across 2,000 buildings in top Indian cities by the company and IMRB International found that while in general the smartness of buildings in India is low, the airports and hotels are leading the way. Read more.

Former President APJ Abdul Kalam today stressed the need for a low cost and reusable construction technology to meet the demand of increasing population and deal with migration from rural to urban areas. Kalam, in this report, said the goal is to provide about 20 million houses over seven years under the Prradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY).

According to a report in DNA, developers have alleged that the Maharashtra government's policy confusion was impacting real estate sector. According to this report, developers have expressed the grouse that the government keeps changing its housing and development-related policies, causing considerable confusion among them, and, more importantly, preventing real estate prices from coming down. 

Off the front page

In Nashik, developers across the city have started submitting building plans to the town planning department for approval before the new norms disallowing the utilization of Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) on smaller roads below 9m come into effect. According to this report, around 723 building plans have been submitted till May 31 in the current financial year.

In Thane, the Opposition NCP-Congress in the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) plans to drag the civic body to the Bombay high court for the `unreasonable' hike in property tax and water surcharge. The ruling Sena-BJP had, last week, endorsed the administration's proposal to hike the sewage and water benefit tax by five per cent each. Read more.

Adding to the real estate investment stories, realty developer Mahindra Lifespace Developers and an investment arm of Standard Chartered Bank have jointly invested in a residential project in Bengaluru. In this report, Anita Arjundas, MD & CEO at Mahindra Lifespaces, says, "Bengaluru is one the largest realty market driven by end users. The JV will invest 50% each in the projects that will come up."  The project cost will be 400-450 crore.

Opinion

Read a piece in Economic Times to know more about fractional ownership. The article begins like this: 'Don't have the money to buy a house? How about owing a portion of it? Fractional ownership, though not a new concept in the commercial and retail segment of real estate, is a relatively new on the residential side and is fast becoming popular.' Continue reading here.

An article in Mint addresses the issue of 'why is it difficult to track property prices?' Though there are some realty indices, their utility is limited. A homebuyer still has to do a lot of homework, the writer argues. Read more.