Realtors latchon to theme-based projects to entice home buyers

Real estate consultancy firms and developers say that themebased housing projects could see a substantial growth in the near future. Shubhranshu Pani, Managing Director (Strategic Consulting), JLL India, opines that owing to the novelty factor attached to theme-based housing concepts, this type of development would witness a lot of growth in times to come. Developers in India are now entering into joint ventures with  foreign interior designers, international architects, design firms and hospitality brands to develop many more theme-based residential projects. 

“With increased globalisation, Indian consumers are rapidly being exposed to global standards and desire to live a luxurious life. This is acting as a cue for developers to develop classier projects,” he said. 

Pointing out that enviable location, spacious living spaces and pleasing architectural design are the basic expectation of modern home buyers in the prime residential category, Pani said that with architecture becoming an important criterion of choosing a property, urbane residences had emerged as a 

successful strategy in the Indian real estate domain. On the architectural front, Egyptian, Arabic, Spanish, Mediterranean, Roman and Moroccan themes are some of those being imprinted on such housing projects at the design level. 

“To differentiate their residential products, add a unique dimension and meet the growing aspirational demand of buyers, developers are now coming up with theme-based housing projects in various cities of India. 

They are launching these projects in and around metropolitan regions such as Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, etc., primarily due to their higher concentration of corporate employees with high disposable incomes. The buyers of luxury theme-based projects are niche clients, as these projects target a specific category of clientele such as HNIs and NRIs, and are customised to meet their demands,” he added. 

Some examples of themed based Luxury projects include, Puravankara Builders is offering 

lifestyle of Venice in Bengaluru at Purva Venezia, Akshaya Group has tied up with Disney to develop a Disney theme residential project of 47 acres in Chennai. Another Disney themed project by Supertech is FableCastle on Yamuna Expressway and Ambrosia by Ajnara Group in Noida is a residential community built on a Spanish theme. Commenting about theme based housing, Ajit Chordia, managing director, Olympia said that themed homes or branded homes have been generally associated with uber-luxury. We can see properties co-branded with Armani, Trump, Yoo Homes (co-founded by celebrated French architect Philippe Starck). 

“These homes bring with them certain design philosophies and elements like furniture associated with the brand. They commend substantial premium to equivalent unbranded homes. Further, for larger townships and even premium homes, brands like Disney, F1 and famous cricket clubs also give co-branding opportunities. Here again, for a fee, the developer is able to leverage the brand and fulfil aspirational values of prospective customers. Number of projects in the NCR have adopted this route for leveraging their brand,” he said. 

Chordia noted that buying homes cannot be solely decided by one member of the family but the views and imagination of spouse and children also play a very important part.