Funds crunch force builders to opt for JVs

A slowdown in the city’s property market has led to a churn in the realty industry with builders struggling to complete their projects and looking for financially stable partners to help them do so. The liquidity crunch has hit many developers hard. In the latest development, Godrej Properties, part of the Godrej Group which is Mumbai’s biggest private landowner, has for the first time entered a slum rehabilitation project. Last week, it signed anMoU with Omkar Realtors and Developers to redevelop Nargis Dutt Nagar, a 4.2-acre slum sprawl at Bandra Reclamation. The sea-facing slum enclave is prime property. As part of the deal, Omkar will handle the rehabilitation of 1,300 slum tenements and rehouse the slum families free of cost on a portion of the land. Godrej will construct the free sale component of 1.1 million sqft and sell it as a luxury residential project. Real estate market source said at least 70 projects of around a dozen financially stressed builders in Mumbai are waiting to be either acquired by larger developers or to be jointly developed. D B Realty, once a powerful construction firm headed by partners Vinod Goenka and ShahidBalwa, has been scouting for partners for its incomplete projects. One of its prime projects at Prabhadevi, comprising three luxury skyscrapers on a 5.75- acre plot, has been taken over by developer Rustomjee as part of a “development management’’ agreement.