Site-seeing

When NRI friends come home for their vacation, it is the time to go for shopping. Shopping for plots!! One of my NRI friends was in town last month and he wanted me to accompany him in this endeavour. His target areas were Selaiyur, Rajakilpakkam, Mudichur and Perungulathur, on the southern fringes of Chennai, which we did see when he was in India last time around. My friend has done his homework well and he came with shortlist of broker names and the property details. He was kind enough to book a A/C taxi for us and together with another of my friend, who is also looking for plots, went for the hunt!!

We met up with a land broker near Tambaram and he showed us couple of plots and houses in Mudichur and Old Perungulathur areas. These areas have developed quite a bit in the last 3-4 years since I have first seen it. It still keeps growing. The plots closer to the main Tambaram - Mudichur road are expensive compared to plots which are in the interior. This roads goes and connects Mannivakkam and joins the Tambaram - Sriperumbudur state highway. The on-going rates in this area is around Rs30-40 lakhs depending upon the location.

While in a particular lay-out, the broker pointed us to a huge compounded area of 10+ grounds and told us that it belongs to Comedy Actor Vadivelu. I made a quick calculation and figured out that one property alone is worth some 3+ crores for this gentleman. Property over a long term has yielded fantastic returns for film stars!!!

After the Mudichur side site-seeing(!), we crossed the GST Road and went towards Selaiyur and Rajakilpakkam. Selaiyur and Rajakilpakkam localities are on the Tambaram Velachery road. If I understand the area correctly, the area on the left hand side (when you go from Tambaram) is called Selaiyur and on the right hand side is Rajakilpakkam. The broker took us to the Rajakilpakkam side and showed us a plot which is stone throw away from a big Jains residential project coming up in Rajakilpakkam. This side is much more impressive than the Mudichur side. There are number of plots still available and the infrastrucutre is also quite well developed. The ongoing rate is around Rs1600/- per sq.ft (for land alone), which translates into Rs38 lakhs for 2400 sq. ft or 1 Ground. While we were seeing the plot, we were informed by the broker that there is a new lay-out being sold under the name of Tellus Avenue. We went and saw that and it was quite impressive as well. The lay-out has good broad internal tar roads and it is surrounded by houses. Naturally, my friend got interested in the new lay-out and he went around looking for plots. I guess the broker would have rued informing us about the new lay-out!!

As a follow up I kept looking for Selaiyur/Rajakilpakkam plots in the Property Plus and there are a couple of them which came during the last 2 weeks. But more than the Property Plus, the local brokers have intimate knowledge of the area and they know of plots which are up for sale. These brokers have adopted the electronic medium much more strongly than the print media. Every broker advertises their plots in various property websites as it is cheap and the reach it has among NRI's. I enquired with the broker about the commission he charges for these deals. His commissions are 1% of the property value from the buyer and takes 2% from the seller. Not a bad deal for a property value of Rs40 lakhs or so!!