Raymond Realty to invest into commercial real estate with its premium residential project

Raymond Realty plans to expand its business beyond Thane through various joint ventures without exercising land acquisition.

On October 5, Raymond Realty announced its ‘Grade A’ commercial project spread across 9.5 acres that includes high street retail shops in Thane. Besides this, the company is also looking to develop a premium residential project comprised of 3BHK and 4BHK apartment units with a total area of a million square feet.

Raymond Realty has a sizeable land parcel in Thane which will be used to build one million square feet of commercial project in the first phase of construction. Over 8 lakh sq. ft. area is used for rental purposes while the remaining space is used for high street shopping space, said the company.

With the full swing construction of the project and the completion of its three towers, the company will deliver the units 24 months before its RERA deadline.

“Two years ago when we came into the business everybody said what is Raymond doing in the real estate business and what do they understand about the business. I think the biggest advantage we had coming into this business was that we understood nothing about it. And we rewrote the rules of the book to be able to craft our own journey and write the book to say that this is the way it should be done,” Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director of Raymond.

Mentioning about the project completion he said, “Many firsts here – people said will they actually construct these buildings? Well, they are up. As a company, we have been the fastest real estate site in the company and that too through the pandemic. We have put up a slab every seven days. This is the first thing that is different,”

“On December 10, 2022, at 10 am we will hand over the keys to the first apartment. This is a big statement, big brand reinforcement. As a company, we are cognizant of the pandemic and we are emphatic to our customers. We have taken a decision that any customer whose money has been forfeited, has 24 months to come back to us and we will give him credit for every rupee that he has paid us,” he said.

He said the real estate business has become a significant vertical for the Raymond Group. “This is just the beginning. We have demerged this business with the approval of the board. And the idea is to take this business for its humble beginnings to a completely different level,” he added.

Besides introducing new housing and commercial projects, Raymond Realty is looking for numerous joint ventures with other companies without exercising land acquisition in Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Recently, Raymond Realty got various business proposals across MMR, and the company is on a path to increase its revenue in real estate.

“The current project has given us enough confidence now to expand our horizons beyond Thane and our venture into real estate is not limited to land monetization only,” he said, adding “We are exploring various options of joint development without land acquisition outside Thane,” he said.

Raymond Group is looking to create a subsidiary for its real estate business that will help create growth business opportunities in the future.

Harmani H Sahni, CEO, Raymond Realty said, “We are creating a subsidiary for the real estate business. All projects will be transferred into the subsidiary. It will be a pure-play real estate entity that will, going forward, manage its own funding, raise its own funds, and then work on the expansion. Going forward, we will focus on joint development and not buy any fresh land. We already have a land bank in Thane which is adequate for us for many years to come.”

While mentioning future business prospects, he said, currently they are planning to focus on MMR because real estate is a big market, and they have already invested in it.

During the project launch, the company also announced that customers who were unable to make payment and lead to their unit forfeited due to financial reasons can now get forfeited

“During the pandemic year, there were some customers who faced financial difficulties. And because of that some of the payments did not come on time and we had to cancel those apartments. The money had to be forfeited as per RERA. As a humanitarian gesture going forward, for all those customers for whom the money has been forfeited, we are giving them 24 months’ time starting from the cancellation date, so that if their financial situation improves or some of them who lost their job, find employment or are able to surmount some other difficulty, they can come forward and book another apartment and we can give them full credit of the money that was forfeited,” he said.

With a total of 2350 units, Raymond Realty has sold over 70% of its total inventory. Raymond entered into the real estate space in 2019 with 100 acres of land parcel. The company launched its maiden project ‘10X’ that is spread across 14 acres which has 42 storied towers providing over 3000 well planned 1BHK and 2BHK units.

Published by– PTI