Chennai - GST road land value rises rapidly

Chennai, the laggard in the property bubble has finally caught up with Bangalore and other IT cities like Pune and Noida. Guideline values of agricultural land on the fringes of the city have been revised on an average of upto 270%. Hindu has more on this. 32L documents have been registered in FY2011. By this comparison the number or registrations stands at 4,000 per month. This just shows the scale of affordability in Mumbai as compared to Chennai. 

Jumping on this trend Artha property, an arm of the Times Group has launched villa's off GST road, in close proximity to Mahindra World City. Gives the reach of Times of India full page advertisements coupled with Artha's marketing savvy, I am expecting huge positive response to this property.  Added to this the Times Group can post surreptitious  marketing articles likes this which promote their own self interest it won't be too long that these 230 villa's will be sold in no time.

I expect that the area around Artha meadows sees rapid development in the next few years, as investors and end users join in herds in anticipation of double digit returns. Areas like Adyar are over priced and OMR is flooded with investors which have pushed land prices way to high for anyone to make money in this high interest rate environment. GST road appears to solve the problem of affordability at the expense of a longer commute. For those working around GST this cannot come at a much better time.

Disclaimer : 

I have been a fan of this area for some time due to its low prices and high potential and some of the investments made by me few years ago might see some fruit in the years to come.

New Chennai beckons buyers

Maraimalai Nagar on GST is finally realizing its true potential is providing a higher quality of living for Chennai residents. Land is cheap for now in this area which extends upto Mahindra World City and should provide early bird buyers a good entry point for the foreseeable future. Connectivity is good via the GST road and Southern Railways. If I were to place a bet on any semi-urban suburb in India, this would be it. All the development in this area reminds of me Aundh in Pune in the late 90's, or some areas of Bannerghatta road in Bangalore in the early 2000's. A 2400 sq ft plot can be bought for under 15L. Adding another 10L for construction one can construct a very good quality independent house. Just as the development by big bulilders in Bangalore propped up the infrastructure in semi-developed areas, one can easily expect the same to happen in Chennai.

Hindu has an article on Maraimalai Nagar and when the media starts picking up stories like this, it appears that the time has come for this area to become one of the most talked up places in Chennai. Investors and end-users should closely evaluate this destination if they have a time horizon of 3-5 years and beyond. In my opinion plot prices could easily double in the next 5 years.

Here is the Hindu article