Why Mira Road remains one of Mumbai’s most desired realty hubs

Mira Road, a part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) located in the northern part of Mumbai, has emerged as one of the top investment destinations in the MMR.
Mira Road is on the western line of the Mumbai suburban railway and has easy connectivity to Navi Mumbai, Thane and Mumbai. It is governed by the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation. Mira Road and Bhayandar started developing rapidly into residential hubs mainly because of the manufacturing industries close by as well as the easy connectivity to Mumbai. Most of the development has been on the eastern side of the railway line while the western side is covered by mangroves and salt pans. The well known residential areas in Mira Road are Lodha Complex, Naya Nagar, Shanti Nagar and so on. The going rate for apartments in Mira Road stood at INR 7300 psqft on average.
Despite the poor investment sentiment for housing, Mumbai continues to grow. The Maharashtra government has announced a number of projects to develop infrastructure across the MMR. These projects, which include the Coastal Road Project that will extend from Nariman Point to Kandivali and the Navi Mumbai Airport, have been instrumental in driving the property prices in these areas.
The state government’s plans to make Mumbai an animation and gaming hub for the region will give fresh impetus to job creation and employment opportunities. This would lead to further demand for housing.
During the period April to June 2015, a survey has indicated that there was a perceptible drop in the number of people purchasing homes in the MMR. Mumbai, which was always a market where property prices appreciated, saw a decline in investor sentiment on a quarterly basis. However, despite poor sales the prices of houses continue to rise which has lead to property becoming unaffordable.
Recent research shows that most buyers prefer the western suburbs and Navi Mumbai. Most prospective buyers expect housing prices to come down, given the large inventory which is being held over. There are more buyers for houses which come in the INR 20 lakh to INR 40 lakh range, but this segment has not been catered to.
More than 77,000 housing units are unsold in the Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai region, but prices have remained flat. However, only a very small percentage of the housing units are completed or ready for possession. This is because buyers are not willing to take risks such as construction delays, delays in approvals from government bodies and the builder running out of funds. The buyer also has a number of smaller projects to choose from.
Builders in Mumbai say that there is major change in buyer attitude. While some buyers book projects at the very start of the project to take advantage of the launch offers and lower prices, a greater majority of buyers wish to buy only when the project is nearing completion. This change in buying patterns had caused many a builder grief since most builders do not start the construction with all the funds required for the entire project in hand. The general practice is that buyers will keep buying at various stages of the construction. But since the buyers have been more cautious, this has affected the cash flow situation for the builders and has been one of the primary causes for the delays in construction
Nina Varghese for IndiaProperty.com
Image: By Superfast1111 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By: indiaproperty.com