Ashiana Housing to invest nearly Rs 400 cr on new housing projects

The total cost to develop this 14 lakh sq ft area is estimated at Rs 390 crore in four years, he added. Gupta said the company is also looking for land in Delhi-NCR, Pune and Chennai markets to develop more housing projects for senior citizens as well as normal residences.


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 20-09-2020 15:29 IST | Created: 20-09-2020 15:18 IST
Ashiana Housing to invest nearly Rs 400 cr on new housing projects
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Realty firm Ashiana Housing will invest around Rs 400 crore over the next four years on new housing projects that it plans to launch during this fiscal year, and is also looking for partnerships with landowners for expansion of its business, a top company official said. In an interview with PTI, Delhi-based Ashiana Housing's MD Vishal Gupta said housing sales are recovering gradually post lockdown.

"We will launch over 14 lakh sq ft area during this financial year. This will be new phases in existing projects as well as entirely new projects," Gupta said. The total cost to develop this 14 lakh sq ft area is estimated at Rs 390 crore in four years, he added.

Gupta said the company is also looking for land in Delhi-NCR, Pune and Chennai markets to develop more housing projects for senior citizens as well as normal residences. "We want to add 3-4 projects for normal housing and 3-4 senior living residential projects in joint ventures with landowners," he said.

Gupta pointed out that the company's operational and financial performance was affected during the first quarter of 2020-21 financial year, but sales have improved and construction activity has gained momentum thereafter. He said sales bookings and construction activities would rise significantly in the remaining three quarters of this fiscal year.

According to an investor presentation, Ashiana Housing's sales booking stood at 0.81 lakh sq ft worth Rs 27.36 crore during April-June period of this fiscal year, a sharp drop from sales bookings of 3.54 lakh sq ft worth Rs 117.47 crore in the year-ago period. The area constructed in the first quarter of the current fiscal also fell to 1.21 lakh sq ft from 2.14 lakh sq ft in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Total sales bookings in 2019-20 fiscal stood at 19.82 lakh sq ft with value of Rs 671.63 crore, while total constructed area stood at 9.85 lakh sq ft. Ashiana Housing posted a loss of Rs 2.3 crore in April-June quarter of 2020-21 as against a loss of Rs 4.87 crore in the year-ago period.

Total income fell to Rs 38.19 crore from Rs 66.76 crore during the period under review. Gupta said the company reduced its debt during the first quarter. It prepaid NCDs (non-convertible debentres) of Rs 10 crore held by ICICI Prudential MF and Rs 7 crore held by Aditya Birla Capital.

He said the company has taken various other measures to reduce operational costs. Gupta said the housing market has become largely end-users driven and affordability has increased due to lower interest rate on home loans. He expects demand for senior living homes to rise because of safety and security facilities in such projects.

Ashiana Housing has a presence in Jaipur, Bhiwadi, Jodhpur, Jamshedpur, Neemrana, Sohna, Lavasa, Pune, Halol, Chennai and Kolkata. According to property consultants, housing sales fell by 50-60 per cent in the first half of this calendar year.

Property consultant Anarock reported a 61 per cent decline in housing sales across six major cities at 55,270 units during the first half of this year. Sales of residential properties declined 52 per cent to 88,593 units across eight cities during January-June period of 2020, according to housing brokerage firm PropTiger.

As per Knight frank, housing sales in eight major cities of the country declined 54 per cent during January-June to 59,538 units..

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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