In Lahore, one of the few projects that can potentially increase investment activity at the moment where market is mostly dealing with genuine buyers is Lahore Development Authority (LDA)’s project i.e. LDA City. The main reason why the society can now invite some investment activity is its upcoming ballot to allocate plot numbers. Read on if you are looking to know more about it.
Project details
LDA City is located on Ferozepur Road near the recently inaugurated Lahore Ring Road’s Interchange on Gaju Matah. Planned to become the largest housing society of Punjab, land acquisition for its Phase I has been completed, while land acquisition is in process in many mouzas that fall in the planned area of the project.
If you have been keenly following local newspapers, you must have noticed publications revealing details of people and their land that they surrendered for the society. Yet, there still exist several land pockets that LDA is looking to acquire through its development partners.
The ballot
Earlier this month, the LDA Director General Zahid Akhtar Zaman gave instructions to hold a ballot to allocate plot numbers to LDA City files in March. In this regard, the date hasn’t been announced yet but the property agents I spoke to believe that it could be held somewhere towards the end of March.
In this ballot to be done for Phase I, which approximately spans 30,000 kanals of land, the LDA will ballot 5-marla, 10-marla, 1-kanal and 2-kanal plot files. The LDA will only include those files for which exemption letters have been issued. In this regard, the LDA staff is reportedly working extra hours to issue exemption letters. In other words, a number of LDA City file owners are looking forward to the upcoming ballot.
The exemption letters are issued only for the plot files for which pending dues are being cleared. According to Mian Abu Bakar of Raza Group, the LDA may ballot approximately 8,000 plots and tend to the rest in the second phase of the ballot, but the final decision is yet to be made.
Society map
It is also rumoured in the market that the LDA has prepared the map for LDA City, which is not shared with the stakeholders yet. Some agents still claim to have a basic version of this map, in which plot numbers are not marked but the location of sectors falling in LDA City Phase I are available.
The market norm about sharing the official map is almost the same for all projects, where final map is issued shortly after the ballot is conducted. We can only recommend readers to wait for that and not to rely on the map shared otherwise by agents.
Development status
According to the agents we spoke to, fast-paced development work is being carried out in LDA City’s Sectors 3, 4 and 5, where work on streets, land and sewerage lines has been completed, with development focus shifted on completing work on the 300-feet Main Boulevard that runs through different sectors. Reportedly, work on it has been completed by 60%.
The 300 feet wide road that connects the society’s main entrance with Gaju Matah is open to traffic. In addition, work on the sports stadium has been completed by 70%.
Current trends
The demand for LDA City plot files is picking up, as revealed by the sources. All buyers looking to make an entry just now are only interested in buying files for which exemption letters have been issued. We have also heard that LDA has stopped the transfer of intimation files, as the last date to apply for intimation letters was December 31, 2017.
Among the new buyers, the demand is higher for 5-marla and 10-marla plots, essentially because making small investments in LDA City is believed to be safer.
A look at the rates
Due to the fact that a lot of plot files are available in the secondary market, the buying and selling rate is different by a small percentage, where the buying rate is slightly higher than the selling rate. In addition, LDA City’s development partners have also launched new booking on cash at higher rates.
Due to availability of files at cheaper rates, files offered on new booking are less in demand. For your convenience, we have included market rate (buying price) of initiation files, files for which exemption letter have been issued, and files with exemption letter offered by the development partners under new booking.
| Plot file size | Intimation file | Files with exemption letters | Exemption files (new booking) |
| 5-marla | PKR 1,600,000 | PKR 1,725,000 | PKR 17,90,000 |
| 10-marla | PKR 2,500,000 | PKR 2,705,000 | PKR 2,790,000 |
| 1-kanal | PKR 3,850,000 | PKR 4,125,000 | PKR 4,290,000 |
| 2-kanal | PKR 14,000,000 | PKR 16,065,000 | PKR 17,500,000 |
What to expect
Based on the fact that property demand in a project increases around the time of a ballot, similar activity is anticipated in LDA City. Our sources believe that successful plot owners in the ballot will safely ask for an amount higher by 25% than the existing rate, while price appreciation expected by the time of ballot could be 10% to 15%.
We have also heard rumours of the developer looking to launch new deals for LDA City plot files at a higher rate soon after the ballot. This will automatically push rates up for the existing files.
That was all have could share with you right now on LDA City. If you have feedback or queries regarding this piece, let us know through your comments. You can also head to Zameen Forum to get the take of property experts on investing in LDA City.
No comments:
Post a Comment