Mahindra Lifespace Developers (MLD), the real estate and infrastructure development arm of the Mahindra group, on Thursday, launched its second affordable housing project Happinest in Boisar, a suburb 100 km from Mumbai.
MLD had launched its first project at Avadi in Chennai six weeks ago. These two are pilot projects from which the earnings will be used to arrive at a viable business model and scale up later, Anita Arjundas, MD & CEO, MLD, said at a press conference.
“Our first Happinest project at Avadi has received encouraging response,’’ she said.
The Boisar project is spread over 14 acres, and offers one-room-kitchen, one-bedroom-kitchen and two-bedroom kitchen combinations ranging from 351 sq. ft. to 695 sq. ft. The units are priced between Rs.9.10 lakh and Rs.17.50 lakh. The project will have a total of 1,359 units.
“In phase I, out of 600 units on offer in Avadi, we sold 110 units in 45 days. The plan is to build 1,400 homes by the third phase,’’ Ms. Arjundas said.
The company has tied up with housing finance companies to finance the eligible customers whose average income is between Rs.20,000 and 40,000 a month. “The finance companies have customised products for our project as many of them may not have documents for proof of income. About 40 per cent of our customers are from the informal sector,’’ she said
Sriram Mahadevan, Business Head, said there were more than 1,500 industries in and around Boisar and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Centre (MIDC) had its largest centre in Boisar. The project was pre-certified by the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), he added. “The aim is to deliver the buildings in one year for each of the phases,’’ he said.
