The flaunting face of Real Estate

The concept of branded residences gained a lot of attention in the Indian real estate market and turned out to be a very niche segment with of course a restricted number of buyers. With the idea to boost the value of the property, a lot of developers tied-up with International luxury, hospitality and lifestyle brands in addition to celebrities and offered the investors a very unique and posh lifestyle. In the most basic terms, luxury residential projects which have a brand name attached to them as referred as branded residences. A lot of top developers like Lodha, M3M, ATS, Godrej, IREO, Piramal etc have tied up with brand like Armani, Disney, Fashion, Jade Jagger, Donald Trump, Philippe Starck and Kelly Hoppen, etc. and delivered projects in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi NCR majorly.

The news of Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential elections has given a boost to his India business partners. Luxury brand residencies continue gain growth in India and the recent presidential elections will add to the value of the building in the luxury development portfolio. While reports say that India probably has the highest number of Trump branded real estate projects outside North America. Trump Organization has finalized five luxury residential and office projects in India in association with local partners in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata. The ongoing projects include a 75 storey luxury residential project called Trump Towers in association with the Lodha Group in Lower Parel in Mumbai, a luxury residential project and an office project with M3M India and IREO, respectively, in Gurgaon, a luxury housing project with Panchshil Realty in Pune and a yet to be launched project in Kolkata. The gross development value of about $1.5 billion and the news is that three more projects are likely to be launched in 2017.

The Mumbai and Pune have performed well in terms of price premiums and sales velocity. While Lodha has achieved a price premium of around 35%, the projects with Panchshil have received a price premium of around 60% over neighboring projects. It is undeniable that the Trump's India developer partners have reaped the benefits of their alliance with the brand and are keen to work further with the organization.  The Trump brand has raised the bar by superior luxurious living and adds value for the customers. The developers share that both of us have been looking forward to explore growth in Indian luxury real estate market. The business relationships have been positive as well as profitable. The investors have also gained a lot as Donald Trump adds his own flair to the brand, which has just got bigger. They add that since the brand response has been positive, we can look forward to launching more of such projects in India. In addition to Mumbai, Pune, the National Capital Region and Bangalore; locations like Chennai, Hyderabad, and Goa are the future targeted markets of these super luxury properties.

In conclusion, branded residences are coming into the country as a new branded face of the Indian real estate market. While brands like Fashion TV, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Armani residences have seen great success, US President Trump giving out his name as a brand is one major development. Real Estate sales professionals, the real feet on the street have shared that the time has come when the market has started moving towards being more organized, where A++ developers are emerging as the market leaders. Branded residencies are much easier to sell as it gives a peace of mind to the investors. It also acts as a booster for the developer as usually the construction is completed on time and with the best quality due to the name attached as a brand. All the major banks usually fund these projects and they have a very niche category of investors. The investors and users have a complete confidence and trust, which makes the selling easy. Just for an example, Fashion residences in Greater Noida, at Yamuna Expressway were sold at premium prices. So it becomes very clear from this that in such projects, which are for a specific target segment, spending capacity is never a challenge. The only challenge is the trust in the developer.