50% flats vacant around city as buyers go missing

In the absence of demand, coupled with Inflation and banks getting stricter on home loans, more than 50 per cent of the apartments at the periphery of the city are waiting for buyers. The problem is expected to worsen once these flats are put up for sale.

A vast array of flats that came up in the Zirakpur and Dera Bassi region during the realty boom due to its locational advantage, today either stand vacant or have had their construction shelved in the absence of liquidity. Financiers who earlier used to buy land and put their money in the construction, too, have abandoned the real estate projects, thereby leaving developers and builders in the lurch. Developers, thus, have shifted their focus from investors to buyers.

“One of the driving forces for the flat boom in the periphery of Chandigarh was the high returns developers had foreseen. They had gone overboard by churning out flats rather than carving out plots. Around 25,000 flats will come up in Zirakpur, Dera Bassi, Mohali, Kharar and nearby areas in the near future. Of these, more than 50 per cent are lying vacant. The figure includes both constructed and completed flats as well as those that have been stalled due to lack of financial resources,” said Dee Ess Estates developer in Zirakpur, R P Malhotra.

“The experience I have gained from my relatives and friends who have waged their money into flats is very discouraging. I would prefer an independent floor of a smaller area in the city even if I have to pay more, rather than investing in a flat with hardly any infrastructure available. People are neither able to move into these apartments, nor they are able to sell it even at marginal profits as there are no takers,” said Vikas Sharma, a resident of Chandigarh.

... contd.