Saturday 14 July 2012

Super Luxury apartments – An upcoming real estate reality in Kerala

This is how Financial Chronicle defines super luxury living in their article in April 2011.
  • Super-luxury homes are more like plush hotels – and they are the flavour of the times. What makes them so exclusive?
  • An exquisite villa on an island, with an exclusive speedboat to pick up your guests from the mainland
  • A home located around a nine-hole golf course designed by world famous architect Graham Cooke
Following the bounce back from the recession, ‘super luxury’ has become the buzzword in India.  India has over 85,000 Ultra High Net worth Individuals (UHNIs) and their numbers are swelling at a fast clip. As per Jones Lang LaSalle India, homes costing above Rs.10crore will fall into the super luxury category. Location is the key factor to begin with. A great location within the heart of the city always commands a premium from the builder. Some other features include apartments with five bedrooms or more spread over 5,000 to 10,000 square feet and with amenities like personal lap pools and jogging parks in the sky.

As per Econonomic Times, the super luxury housing segment ranging between Rs 4 crore and Rs 30 crore, which had taken a backseat during the slowdown, is making a comeback. Over the last year, demand for super-luxury residential properties has risen by 30-40 %. Realty firms such as Lodha Developers, Orbit Corporation, and Skyline Constructions have readied plans to cash in on a rather specialised niche. Luxury boutique homes are targeted at the HNI segment. This includes CEOs, senior professionals , entrepreneurs in new-age businesses and wealthy non-resident Indians who are looking for homes in India.

At the moment, at least a dozen super-luxury apartment complexes are being built across India right now, mostly in the major metro cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. In terms of specifications, builders are more focused on providing high-quality finishes and the best of amenities in their complexes. They are using Italian marble instead of cheap tiles, German bathroom fittings instead of Indian ones, and high-quality internal finishes of Burma teak floors. It’s also common to now get high-quality air-conditioning, home automation systems with touchscreen controls, and in some cases, fully-furnished apartments.

In Bangalore, duplex apartments in the Windmills of Your Mind project are built so that all living spaces open to terrace gardens. The developer, Total Environment Constructions Private Ld, gives buyers an online tool that allows them to customize everything in their apartment, including the type of flooring, landscaping and electric fittings.

Such customization has not yet been witnessed in the Trivandrum real estate market, although many developers like Artech, Big Infra and SI are coming out with what they call “super luxury” apartments. Most of these promise excellent finish, an invitation only buying (yes they really keep a list of customers whom they invite to buy these), and of course a prominent location within the city.

Even if you have a ton of cash to buy these super-luxury apartments, you might not always be able to. Some developers are increasingly conscious about who will live in their apartments; the wealthier and more respected the residents, the more prestige it adds to the developer’s brand. So, many of these luxury homes are invite-only.