Real estate purchase in Chennai

Purchasing real estate in India is extremely attractive those days. In the last two years smart investors have made around 30% increase in the value of their properties on a year on year basis. The demand is sky rocketing and supply is not able to cope, which is why the prices are over board and in a city like Mumbai higher than in New York.

Chennai really does not have any finished high standard real estate at this time. In light of this the city is currently the most booming town around real estate in India. Prices are shooting up more than even the Indian average 30% per year and I consider myself already the biggest fool on earth, that I have not purchased any apartment or house over the past two years. Anyway, I still want to do this, but there are a lot of questions for which I currently do not have any answers:

• Under which circumstances can I take a legal title on a property as foreigner?
• How do I bring in money?
• How do I convert the money without loosing out on FX?
• In case I want to sell how many years do I need to stick with the real estate for tax reasons?
• In case I want to sell, how do I repatriate the money into the EUR zone?
• and many more questions

All the questions I want to attack in the short future and I will post the outcome here as well. I really do believe, that purchasing real estate in India and especially Chennai is an incredible opportunity at this time with unbeatable returns around the globe.

Foreigners might not really find the new buildings as visually attractive as they very often remind more to Disneyland than any city. If you look around in South East Asia you will actually find many more such buildings, which have all at least in built Swimming Pool, jogging track and in house gym. Still there are two different concepts:

Townships: Includes really all facilities in a huge area of at least 100 acres. Townships are towns within a town and have school, mall, hospital, offices, apartments in the same gated community. If you live and work there, basically you do not have to leave the place if you don't want. I personally would not want to live my life in such a township, but the concept of a small town built up from scratch is definitely fascinating.
The following townships are currently in planning stage: Palace Gardens - very impressive!!, Ozone and World Village.

Gated communities: Have as well at least 100 apartments or villas in one area, but are only providing facilities such as pool, gym, children playground, play room and maybe a restaurant. Currently under construction are the following: Green Meadows, Upscale, Lumbini, Blessings, Fomra.

I had already indicated, that the price is quite expensive. Most of the townships are from 30 km onwards outside of the village. Depending on the luxury you pay from 3000 INR/sft onwards. Also for the gated communities the location and distance to the city center is the decisive factor. The per sft price can go up to 6000, which is already comparable to some Western European cities - In my opinion: IT IS STILL WORTH BUYING!! The only question currently is HOW?