Mangalore back on the real estate radar

The last one heard of Mangalore was when the ill-fated Cogentrix simply made life difficult for the local populace. For long, the project stood as a dark shadow over Mangalore's prospects as a natural harbour town, with very few investors wanting to even look at it.

But then, Mangalore, and Mangloreans have been very hardy. Never say die is the word and it seems to resurface again and again. Shrugging off the shadows of Cogentrix, Mangalore is coming around to being its busy self again.

Just like the other coastal areas of the country, Mangalore, too, has a large non-resident Indian (NRI) population that sends in money to the homeland. And just like elsewhere in the country, post September 11, the amount of money coming in has gone up drastically. NRIs now definitely want to look at the prospect of returning home and their home cities and towns are benefiting from this resolve.

Mangalore has several factors going for it. The Sea Bird project at Karwar nearby has brought this place into the limelight.

Manipal, a few kilometres away is an academic city that boasts not just of some of the best educational institutions in the country, but also some of the best medical facilities. And, not be left behind in the IT race, it has started a technology park and is planning to upgrade its airport to international standards.

It is only a matter of time, then, that its real estate industry should start looking up. During the boom, Mangalore was one of those cities that got large sums as investment in apartment blocks and complexes that no one wanted.

The post-boom period coincided with the Cogentrix phase, making the cross doubly heavy for the city. But now, with land rates more or less refusing to go down further, Mangalore has become a decent option for investment.

It is not really as if Mangaloreans have not had the purchasing power. It is just that they are a lot more cautious, especially when it comes to investing their hard-earned money. Which is why all those small operators hardly found any takers when it came to investing long after the boom.

Now, the ones who have stood the winds of times are the ones finding the investors, for, in the words of Rajaram Hegde, a consultant in the city, "they have proved that they are not exactly fly-by-night".

A quick comparison of the prices about four years ago and now show that they are not likely to move southwards any more. Apartments in posh localities like Kadri, Bendore and Falnir still stand at about Rs1,000 per square foot. In the immediate neighbourhood, they might come down to about Rs750 per square foot, but not any lower.

On the commercial side, Hampanakatta, still holds good at about Rs400,000 to 500,000 a cent (440 square foot) of land. There is practically no residential property available here, and the commercial complexes come at about Rs2,000 to Rs3,500 a square foot depending on the construction.

Construction is another area which has seen an upswing in the city. The quality has become much better than it was even four years ago, thanks to the NRIs who insist on some basic quality norms in a building.

And constructing for software parks calls for a certain amount of expertise which has entered the industry here thanks to the participation of some large construction companies.

"The time is really right to buy in Mangalore just now," says Hegde, "the market has bottomed out, construction is getting better and bank deposit rates have hit rock bottom. Real estate has become a viable option."

Kanchan Kaur is a Bangalore-based journalist specialising in property and real estate.