Following a slump in real estate business, realty major Olympia Group has started monetising some of its excess assets in Chennai to develop ecosystems to promote occupancy of residential homes, a top executive said.
“We are building three schools, co-living apartments, luxury and high-end villas,” said Ajit Kumar Chordia, managing director, Olympia Group. “Building schools in residential areas will attract new admissions, which, in turn, will increase our occupancy rate. We are trying to get some rental from these properties, which we were unable to sell.” Admitting that there was no land bank or new project, he said: “We had acquired these lands some 10 years ago. Two new IT parks in Guindy (Tecknos and National Tower) will be ready by October 2017 and March 2018 respectively. The total constructed area is about 2 lakh sq.ft and the investment is about ₹82 crore.”
Luxury projects
Mr. Chordia, also the president of CREDAI Tamil Nadu, said the real estate market had been flat for 12 months. But there had been some moments in the luxury projects in the last six months, post demonetisation. “General buyers are coming back. Expensive houses are selling, while sale of premium apartments is static. There is a marginal increase in prices of raw materials due to implementation of GST. It might be a 6% increase for customers,” he said. As per the proposed plan, Olympia Group will be investing close to ₹90 crore on co-living apartments, ₹50 crore for villas, ₹36 crore on industrial warehouse and ₹100 crore for three schools, including land. This calls for an investment of ₹350 crore, which will be met mainly through bank finance.
“Last year, we earned a rental revenue of ₹97 crore from Olympia Tech Park and this year, it should touch ₹100 crore. Our goal is to double it by March 2022. We expect the rentals from new segments such as schools, and co-living to be about ₹22 crore,” he said.
