Sobha plans to launch mid-income homes by fiscal-end
Realty firm Sobha, known for its luxury apartments, is increasing its focus on mid-income homes, a segment where it sees demand rising fast. It also plans to launch more commercial projects. Mid-income homes from the Bengaluru-based company will be priced upwards of Rs 35 lakh and marketed under a new brand, Sobha Dream. Homes starting above Rs 1 crore will continue to be under the Sobha brand. Currently, Sobha generates around 65% of its revenue from projects where the homes are priced Rs 1 crore or more. It sold 2 million sq ft of housing projects in the first two quarters of the current financial year. The company will launch two mid-income housing projects, one each in Bengaluru and Gujarat, in the current financial year ending March. It plans to replicate the model in other markets like Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad. “While overall (market) sentiment is still bad, things are improving. We are looking at rolling out mid-income homes under the Dream series brand to almost all the top cities in the country,” managing director JC Sharma said. The company plans to have around 20% of the new launches under the Dream series in the coming quarters. It is set to launch 8.6 million sq ft of residential projects over the next two quarters. Mid-income housing has emerged the preferred segment for home buyers even as the costlier projects continue to see slow sales. The government’s emphasis on affordable and mid-income dwellings with policy initiatives like the credit-linked subsidy scheme and lowering of goods and services tax to 8% from 12% has also helped the segment grow. According to a study by Square Yards, the share of mid-market houses touched an all-time high of 42% of total transactions in the April-September period of the current financial year, compared with 38% a year earlier and 32% two years prior.
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