South Mumbai high: Rs 100-cr flats
Ten duplex apartments at the under-construction Lotus Villa in the Napean Sea Road area of south Mumbai have been priced at a minimum Rs 100 crore each.
Each square foot of the apartments costs Rs 1 lakh — nearly thrice as much as the per-square foot price of an apartment on the hundredth floor of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower. For the price of one Lotus Villa apartment, you could buy about 1,500 low income flats in the public housing project in the suburb of Ghatkopar. Each apartment will have a super-built up area of 12,750 sq ft including a private terrace garden. These castles in the air will be India's costliest apartments, and among the largest on offer in India's financial capital.
Kalpana Shah, Chairman and Managing Director of the Satellite Group, which is building the apartments, declined to comment on the price. However, insiders in the realty business confirmed the rates. "We do not want to announce the prices until the project is launched. But this will definitely be one of the most high-end apartments," Shah said.
Apart from the ones booked initially by investors, most apartments in the 27-odd storey Lotus Villa remain unsold. Shah said she would re-launch the project in April. The building is coming up on an over-one acre plot on which the Morarka Bungalow stood until three years ago. The first 10 floors will be reserved for parking.
Every inch of land in south Mumbai commands astronomical prices. Mumbai's last big-ticket apartment sale took place in 2007, when a flat at NCPA Apartments on Nariman Point went for Rs 34 crore. At Rs 97,000 per sq ft, that is the country's record residential deal so far. The Mumbai-based Satellite Group has over 48 projects including residential projects in Ghatkopar and Goregaon. It also has commercial projects in Andheri and Worli. The Group's then MD, Pankaj Shah, was killed in the 26/11 terror attack at the Taj.
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Four-bedroom SoBo flat sold for 29.5 crore
A flat in the NCPA Apartments at Nariman Point was sold for Rs 29.50 crore on May 16. Flat no 34, which has four bedrooms and a super built-up area of 3,475 sq ft, was sold by Ambuja Cements to RAAS Residence Mumbai Ltd at the rate of Rs 85,000 a sq ft. The flat is located on the third-floor of the sea-facing tower.
It is not a record-breaking transaction but property trackers said the deal took place at a time when the real estate market is virtually dead in the city.
In November 2007, when the market was booming, a four-bedroom flat at NCPA fetched Rs 97,842 per sq ft, that is Rs 34 crore. The seventh floor (No 74) pad was sold by Citibank to the highest bidder, a UK-based NRI, who bought the apartment in the name of Record Investments and Leasing Pvt Ltd. Citibank had bought the flat for Rs 2 crore in the early 1990s.
RAAS Residence Mumbai Ltd is believed to have paid Rs 1.69 crore as stamp duty. However, 50% of the sale amount will be shared equally by the Mumbai collector and the NCPA. It works out to a substantial Rs 13.78 crore. A clause in the NCPA sale agreement stipulates that if a flat is resold, 50% of the profit should go to the NCPA, of which half will be given to the government of Maharashtra.
"When permission was given to the promoters of the residential building in the 1980s, the government had put in a condition that half the sales proceeds of a flat would be shared equally between the collector and the NCPA. The seller receives 50% of the sale profit while the collector and NCPA are entitled to 25% each,'' said sources.
In the early 1990s when the building was completed, the original buyer of Flat no 34 had paid Rs 1.94 crore. The latest deal in NCPA is one of the very few which have been recorded at the market price.
In January last, a similar size apartment in the building was shown to be sold for just Rs 5.9 crore. This is because the seller based the price on the state government's ready reckoner rate, which is way below the market price of the flat.
It is alleged that many sale transactions in this building are not registered because of the 50% clause. "In the past decade, 13 apartment transfers were recorded and most of them were shown to be based on the ready reckoner rates,'' said a property market source. Three years ago, the then city collector I A Kundan initiated an inquiry to find out whether the NCPA housing society was short-changing the government of revenue by not reporting the sale of flats that have taken place over the past decade. The land on which the 22-storey NCPA Apartments stands belongs to the collector.
"The modus operandi is to show these flats as company-owned. So, one company will be shown taking over another company along with its assets and liabilities. This way, there is no actual transaction of the flat and hence such sales are never reported to the collector, who has lost out on revenue,'' Kundan had told TOI. The society then wrote back and gave a list of all the apartment transfers that had taken place over the past decade.
Flats in NCPA are owned by companies and not individuals. The National Centre for the Performing Arts is the promoter of the property.
The 22-storey highrise, was constructed by Shapoorji Pallonji. In the mid-1980s, when the NCPA was running out of funds, Jamshed Bhabha-who was its chairman-approached the state government for an adjoining plot to construct a high-end residential building.
The land belonged to the collector and the government agreed to Bhabha's proposal but with one condition that NCPA would have to share 50% of the profits-from the sale of the flats-with the collector.
It is not a record-breaking transaction but property trackers said the deal took place at a time when the real estate market is virtually dead in the city.
In November 2007, when the market was booming, a four-bedroom flat at NCPA fetched Rs 97,842 per sq ft, that is Rs 34 crore. The seventh floor (No 74) pad was sold by Citibank to the highest bidder, a UK-based NRI, who bought the apartment in the name of Record Investments and Leasing Pvt Ltd. Citibank had bought the flat for Rs 2 crore in the early 1990s.
RAAS Residence Mumbai Ltd is believed to have paid Rs 1.69 crore as stamp duty. However, 50% of the sale amount will be shared equally by the Mumbai collector and the NCPA. It works out to a substantial Rs 13.78 crore. A clause in the NCPA sale agreement stipulates that if a flat is resold, 50% of the profit should go to the NCPA, of which half will be given to the government of Maharashtra.
"When permission was given to the promoters of the residential building in the 1980s, the government had put in a condition that half the sales proceeds of a flat would be shared equally between the collector and the NCPA. The seller receives 50% of the sale profit while the collector and NCPA are entitled to 25% each,'' said sources.
In the early 1990s when the building was completed, the original buyer of Flat no 34 had paid Rs 1.94 crore. The latest deal in NCPA is one of the very few which have been recorded at the market price.
In January last, a similar size apartment in the building was shown to be sold for just Rs 5.9 crore. This is because the seller based the price on the state government's ready reckoner rate, which is way below the market price of the flat.
It is alleged that many sale transactions in this building are not registered because of the 50% clause. "In the past decade, 13 apartment transfers were recorded and most of them were shown to be based on the ready reckoner rates,'' said a property market source. Three years ago, the then city collector I A Kundan initiated an inquiry to find out whether the NCPA housing society was short-changing the government of revenue by not reporting the sale of flats that have taken place over the past decade. The land on which the 22-storey NCPA Apartments stands belongs to the collector.
"The modus operandi is to show these flats as company-owned. So, one company will be shown taking over another company along with its assets and liabilities. This way, there is no actual transaction of the flat and hence such sales are never reported to the collector, who has lost out on revenue,'' Kundan had told TOI. The society then wrote back and gave a list of all the apartment transfers that had taken place over the past decade.
Flats in NCPA are owned by companies and not individuals. The National Centre for the Performing Arts is the promoter of the property.
The 22-storey highrise, was constructed by Shapoorji Pallonji. In the mid-1980s, when the NCPA was running out of funds, Jamshed Bhabha-who was its chairman-approached the state government for an adjoining plot to construct a high-end residential building.
The land belonged to the collector and the government agreed to Bhabha's proposal but with one condition that NCPA would have to share 50% of the profits-from the sale of the flats-with the collector.
Source : Nauzer K Bharucha,TNN
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