Real Estate Investment :- Destination Kolkata

I left HP SAN Lab, Bangalore and relocated to Kolkata, my hometown after getting an offer from a startup working in the SAN domain.

Even while in Bangalore, I was hearing that with huge industrial investments pouring in from across the globe, Kolkata is fast becoming an attractive destination for commercial activity. A glimpse of it can be found here and here.


I started looking for real estate ( predominantly apartments) for investment and not for keeping those as assets for future revenue streams. Moreover I also wanted the investment to give a handsome return in 2-3 years time frame. Being a first time investor, I talked to a whole bunch of real estate consultants and friends . I did an extensive survey in the net and looked at the infrastructure projects and their deadlines ( both actual and relaxed ).

I realized that the prudency lies in going for a under-construction project (as full down-payment was not necessary) in an upcoming area (for higher returns).


Rajarhat was obviously the name which I heard again & again . When various projects in this satellite town were launched in 2005 , the rates were somewhere around 1600-1700/ sq ft level. In less than 2 years time the rates are hovering around 3100-3300 / sq feet.

Even now it is expected Rajarhat, with this high rate , would give a 50 % - 60 % return in a time span of 3 years . Obviously the rate of appreciation is getting flattened as the township is nearing completion .


I explored EM Byepass. With the city poised to grow from Barasat to Baruipur, this road is going to be the lifeline of the metropolis.
If one looks at the central and southern parts of EM Byepass, Parama Island ( Science City ) is going to be one of the most upmarket commercial zones with 3 five-star hotel projects on the anvil. But the only residential appartment complex,Silver Spring, being a 10 min journey from both Rajarhat & Park Street, is commanding rates of (4200-4500)+/sq feet.

Kasba Golpark ( Ruby Hospital) is turning out to be an excellent mixture of residential and commercial zone with Nonadanga being declared as an IT hub. The upcoming projects are here carrying a price tag of 3000+/sq feet.

If one looks further beyond, the next 2 junctions on EM Byepass are Baisnavghata Patuli and Kamalgazi. In Patuli, rates are hovering around Rs. 1800-Rs 2200 / sq feet and in Kamalgazi those are Rs. 1300-Rs1800 / sq feet depending on the facilities offered by the project as well as which stage of completion it is in. These 2 junctions really fascinated me.

Advantage Patuli / Kamalgazi:

1. Entry Barrier ( price) for investment is less.

2. The place is going to get a huge infrastructure facelift by next 2-3 years as Garia Metro is scheduled to open by 2009 latest . Moreover the current 4 - lane byepass beyond Ruby Hospital is going to be upgraded to a 8-lane expressway by 2010 .

3. Salt Lake Sector V as well as Rajarhat is not more than 30-45 min journey from these 2 places. So this pollution-free green zone is bound to be pretty popular as residential abode for IT professionals. This was pretty evident in the way IT professionals lapped up the Sherwood Project in Narendrapur (3-4 bus stops beyond Kamalgazi). The project which was launched at Rs 900/ sq feet is now selling at Rs. 1800/ Sq feet.

4. Nonadanga IT Park ( near Ruby Hospital) is a 10 min jouney.

5. The South 24 Pargana district head quarter is scheduled to get shifted from Alipur to Baruipur by 2008. Land aquisition is already over and construction work has also started I heard. With Salim group supposed to build a township of 3000 acres in Baruipur with huge IT SEZs and a health city on 800 acres coming up in Sonarpur- Baruipur , Patuli and particularly Kamalgazi is scheduled to be a gateway to these places.

I decided to invest in this stretch only. If Rs. 1000/ sq feet of profit can be acheived in a couple of years by investing in any of these 2 places and that too with such low entry barriers, I think that is a pretty nice option.

Some of the projects which I came across in this belt are:
http://www.nkrealtors.com/sonar_faq.html
http://www.remacindia.com/project.as...69#javascript()

Any criticism, ideas, suggestions, questions are most welcome.

BarCamp

Blogging has it own advantage, not only for the corporate world, according to me browsing through blogs of meaningful content is a good timepass. The other day, I chanced to stumble upon a blog which informed me of an event which I would have missed otherwise.

The event is called barcamp. Now all my geek friends must be well aware of it. But to me the Concept was totally new and would have to came to know of the event only after it had taken place. This thing occurred with FOSS, the details of which I came to know from Krishna’s blog after the event took place actually.

Why? What?

For the novice, a bar camp is a spin off on the original tech conferences that are routinely held in the tech-world. Tech-conferences generally are loathed by a majority of geekdom as they charge a hefty fee ranging between Rs. 3500 to Rs 10000 for attending the conference. Moreover participation is limited to the invitees only.

History

O’Reilly like all tech publishers, needs to become aware of emerging technologies well in advance so they can get a book out on the subject before it gets mainstream. Among their methods has been “Friends of O’Reilly Camp” (Foo Camp), an annual event since 2003 wherein Tim invites a bunch of really smart people to hang out together in a camp (a real camp, with tents for accommodation) and teach each other stuff or brainstorm new ideas, without any predetermined structure. O’Reilly skims from this for their books and conferences.

The event was meant to be private, but word got out and this of course pissed off a lot of people who weren’t invited, or weren’t invited the following year. Hence Barcamp, a counter event where anybody can participate

Panacea?

Bar Camp is an ad-hoc "un-conference" born from the desire to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. The chief unwritten rule of bar camps require that you come prepared to share something with the other attendees. Attendance is open to anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn. The presentations are also placed on the web for the benefit of those who could not attend. All Bar Camps have dedicated ‘Wikis’ - websites that allow users to add or modify content, giving information about the event,

Delhi hosted the first ‘desi Bar Camp’, with 75 participants at the Adobe office.
The next immediate Bar Camp is on April 8th & 9th 2006 at Anna University, Chennai.

There is a simulataneous one being held on April 8th at Hyderabad too at IIIT, Hyderabad.

That one will be followed by one in Bangalore on the 22nd of April at Yahoo! Software Development India Pvt. Ltd

For all you guys who do not want to miss the occasion, get registered at
http://barcamp.org/BarCampBangalore

All Bar Camp venues and dates are let known at http://barcamp.org/

For the people who want to organize such a stuff in their own city, I came across an an excellent link.

Knowledge Industry

There is one thing among all the IT workers which intrigues me --the extreme narrowness of their job profile.

The 4 years of BTech in India are spent by most of the engineering students in a real dilute academic scenario. When they join job, some sort of programming language training is imparted in the first few months and then they are put mostly in maintenance / enhancement project where they just keep on doing the same job for years at a stretch. Some buggy code is churned out which are pointed out by people ( another set of BTech graduates ) in the quality team with the help of a few automated test tools and a few of the bugs are partially fixed.

Mass communication / literature graduates working in the field of print & electronic media lacking insight about the complexity of different technologies term these people as “knowledge workers”.

Years pass by, these coders make career progress, become project leaders , lose the touch with the bare minimum technologies that they used to know ( coding skills), spend the day in communicating with different groups , & working in word processors & spreadsheets & email clients( Microsoft word, Microsoft Excel, Outlook).

IT companies are recruiting en masse. The same thing used to be done by the PSU s in India 2-3 decades back. Today the economy forced the PSU s to close down. Most obedient employees were forced to resign & social soothing was given with the help of words like Voluntary retirement service, Golden Handshake etc.

Technologies change, rules of economy do not. Is there any guarantee that tomorrow the outsourced jobs will not migrate to some cheaper destinations? What will happen to these millions of people ( technologists) who do not even have the slightest of idea about the progress in technology happening elsewhere or the change in the ways in which business values are being enforced on the technologies , who do not care to bother about the emerging digital business paradigms in the new era or the changes that are sweeping the manufacturing industry ?

What will happen to the IT parks in various states? Will they also turn out to be multi storied housing complexes (Jute mills in eastern India & Textile mills in West are examples).

If that happens who / what is to be blamed?
The traditional “system” of exploitation?
The immaturity / lack of career ambitions of the laborers (“knowledge workers”)?

Academia may put the blame squarely on the laziness & the lack of insight on part of the IT professionals only but that does not lead us anywhere.

Is the academia no way related to the dilute academic standard prevalent in the engineering colleges in India? Are they no way responsible when a Computer Science graduate gets frightened at the elementary concept of mathematics in spite of the fact that the computer was invented to shed light on a philosophical crisis in the foundations of pure mathematics .


Is there any way out of this situation??
MTech???
The MTech guys in the software industry do not prove to be so...
I do not know....