The emerging growth corridors of Chennai provide buyers many investment opportunities. Unlike other cities, Chennai’s reaction to the real estate sector was mixed last year. While sales experienced a good momentum in the beginning it was rickety towards the end with a dip in new launches by the end of the year.

According to recent Magicbricks data, among the localities in Chennai that have the potential to witness growth in property prices are Adyar which tops the list with 11.9 percent and prices expected to grow by 11.3 percent in the next three months, followed by Kodambakkam at 8.9 percent with prices expected to grow by 5.0 percent. Nungambakkam has been rated at 7.9 percent with prices expected to grow by 10.0 percent, T Nagar with 2.2 percent and Mylapore with 0.6 percent decline with prices expected to grow by 3.8 percent in the next three months.

Investment hotspots

The Investment Hotspots report by Magicbricks Research indicate that upcoming projects being built in the city’s emerging nodes that enjoy growing employment opportunities, improving infrastructure and increasing population. These new nodes are laden with realty potential in 2017 and 2018. The emerging corridors of growth in Chennai are Chromepet-Tambaram, GST and OMR.

Chromepet tambaram

It is the most well connected corridor in Chennai as it is very close to Central Chennai. Medavakam has the highest share of consumer demand mainly due to its connectivity and proximity to Velachery, a well-established residential area. As property prices are high in Velachery, people prefer to buy in Medavakkam where average prices are in the range of Rs 4,500 per sq ft as compared to Rs 8,000 per sq ft and above at Velachery. Chromepet which is the centre of the corridor have the next highest demand. Best bedroom configurations to buy are 2BHK apartments. The second most preferred is the 3BHK category in the corridor. This means that the localities in and around Nanmangalam have 2BHK property and consumers are also showing interest in this category. Areas such as Medavakkam and Velcahery have independent homes and builder floor apartments with 2 and 3BHK units.

GST Road

Residential and commercial establishments dot both sides of GST. There is special emphasis on SEZs with almost five of them already set-up and a few more in the process of getting approvals. When it comes buying homes, Guduvancheri has the highest share. This is due to its proximity to SRM University, Estancia IT Park and the Ford Plant. The area has a healthy rental yield of about 4 percent.There are more number of ready-tomove-in apartments in Guduvancheri in comparison to other localities. Urapakkam, located next to Guduvancheri, has the next highest demand in the corridor owing to the same reasons as Guduvancheri.Two BHK apartments account for around 70 percent of the total demand. There is also a good demand for independent houses with more bedrooms for renting as these are usually converted to Paying Guest accommodation. These fetch good ROI and also have good demand from ITITeS people working in the many SEZs and IT Parks here.

OMR

This corridor has the highest demand among all corridors. Apart from residential and office spaces, it also has hospitals, residential schools and shopping establishments. The locality with highest consumer demand is Sholinganallur. This is mainly due to its connectivity to Medavakkam and ECR. Two BHK properties here fetch good rents and have limited availability in the corridor. Perumbakkam, next to Sholinganallur, has the next highest demand as the locality has good social infrastructure and hospitals.

Similar to other corridors, 2BHK apartments are the most preferred. About 55 percent people looking to buy the format here. It is also observed that most of the 3BHK apartments that are purchased in the corridor are mostly for self-occupation. Interestingly, although only 2 percent people are looking at buying 4BHK and higher units, about 29 percent people are looking at rental property in this category. While there is demand for all kinds of property it is highest for 2-3 BHK.

Source: Times Property, The Times of India, Chennai