NRIs bring Ahmedabad on the luxury map of India

By: Ravi Sinha

Track2Realty Exclusive: Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune…wait India has just discovered yet another claimant as the ‘Luxury Capital’. The City of Ahmedabad known more for its cost conscious living and affordable housing has been witness to the city’s slow but steady rise to the luxury living with developers’ focus shifting on luxury projects, buyers’ looking up to scale their living and luxury brands flocking to the city.

Has Ahmedabad really arrived on the big stage of luxury living or it is more of a hype to beat the slowdown blues? Well, if the fresh launches in the last one year are indicating any trend, Ahmedabad may soon catch up with the glorified luxury markets of India and the spate of luxury projects are just indicative of its emergence on the luxe map.

What has brought this change of mindset and market dynamics? In one single word it is ‘NRIs’. The analysts tracking the property market in the city find nothing unusual about it with the interest level of NRIs at all time high. They rather wonder how come it took Ahmedabad so long to register its presence on the top of the realty pyramid.

A city with thriving economic activity, a city with a large number of expats spread globally and a city that is poised to be India’s answer to upscale global cities with best of infrastructure…how could Ahmedabad be lagging behind in luxury living is something that can only be traced in its traditional society. Any rational answer to this finds itself outside the conventional wisdom of economics or real estate developments.

Dhaval Ajmera, Director, Ajmera Realty & Infra believes luxury in Ahmedabad spells new stature altogether, with number of prominent developers coming up with luxurious projects in the city. According to him, there is an array of varied form of projects offerings for the city that are styled with new-age luxury with modern and yet class apart amenities.

There are various structures which are built by combining self-sufficient housing with the facilities like an in-house multiplex, post office, petrol pump, and shopping mall. In fact, the ultra-contemporary technology has been embedded to facilitate the esteemed buyers with earthquake-resistant buildings. The concept of “smart homes” embodied with digital security has now gained massive eminence.

“The city of Ahmedabad does have the requisite prospective to surface as one of the best luxurious cities of India. With foreign companies spreading its roots and with the global czars housing their factories in the city, these movements indicate a sure sign of massive progress. The infrastructure projects, real estate developments, connectivity across various cities and growing industrialization makes it key factor to withstand luxury status to the city,” says Ajmera.

The most promising part of Ahmedabad’s march to luxury landscape of India is that luxury segment is still under-supplied in price conscious Ahmedabad market. Compared to the other metro cities the price factor in Ahmedabad is relatively low. But having analysed the market potential the developers are launching a wide range of luxury projects which is getting tremendous response from the end-users. Most importantly, the depreciating rupee against the dollar and the fear of job losses in the west has made the NRI Gujaratis to invest at home and with that comes their luxury quotient in the city.

The developers here claim they offer best of projects with the right price catering to the ultra-modern requirements and luxurious amenities that have been instrumental in bestowing better standard of living to the end-users. The ticket size of an average luxury project in Ahmedabad is still modest as compared to Mumbai or Gurgaon. The recent trend of Second Home has been spotted which is engaging many local citizens and NRI audiences to a large extent.

Sam Chopra, Chairman, RE/MAX India finds there is a visible change of taste in Ahmedabad as far as the concept of luxury market is concerned. According to him, luxury bungalows are passé and luxury apartments are the next in-thing. Earlier luxury projects were on outskirts but now there are a few projects in the heart of the city. Maintaining that luxury projects are not few as before, he asserts one can get a lot of options now. He, however, does not think Ahmedabad still has emerged as the luxury capital of India.

“As of now I don’t think so. Due to weather, prohibition and lack of tourism in vicinity Ahmedabad has little chance. Pune stands to gain on all this fronts. Luxury market is misunderstood rather than under-supplied. The developers are providing things which buyers don’t need and hence end up in slow sales. Ahmedabad is home to few top business houses in India like Adani, Zydus, Nirma, Torrent etc. The property construction is not made with the needs of rich in mind. The few projects which are luxury get sold fast and command a huge premium,” says Chopra.

Under-supply may be a reason why most of the luxury projects are absorbed fast in the city, yet this raises the fundamental question as to whether the flow of NRI money that Ahmedabad is getting can change the luxury real estate in city. More importantly, can the city be a real challenge to other glorified luxury real destinations of India. Some of the analysts believe, Ahmedabad’s march to luxury living may have been slow but it has actually picked up faster than any other luxury city in comparison.

The other cities on the luxury landscape have either been by default, like Mumbai, or have been a result of meticulous planning, as in Gurgaon. But in Ahmedabad luxury living has been a natural progression due to a number of reasons weaved into its economic thread connecting the HNIs, NRIs and Gujarati businessmen. The developers in the city are just rising up to what the market is demanding, of late.

Moreover, the entry of established developers from Mumbai also promises to change the luxury living in the city. After all, they are the developers who have been traditionally catering luxury residences to the affluent Gujarati Diaspora in Mumbai. Now that the city of Mumbai is getting over-saturated, these developers have turned their eyes on the property market of Ahmedabad which is proving to be the happy hunting ground.

The city may take time to compete with other luxury destinations, but it has well begun in its march to luxury living. Already, it has registered its presence in the luxury segment with a bang. NRI money promises to re-write the luxury landscape of Ahmedabad property market.