REAL ESTATE GURGOAN - DLF IN TROUBLE

In another instance of customers wanting to exit from a realty development, several buyers at a mid-range housing development of DLF Ltd in Gurgaon on Delhi’s outskirts want to exit their bookings.
A recent poll among some 600 buyers at the New Town Heights project at Gurgaon, banded together in an online group, showed that 70% of them want DLF—India’s biggest realty firm by market value—to refund payments, of up to Rs31 lakh in some cases, because the firm has not begun construction on the project and real estate prices have crashed in the past six months.
People are not satisfied with the value proposition,” a member of the buyer group, who asked not to be identified. “There has been a huge drop in prices of all the raw materials used for construction... Moreover, the price cut announced by DLF for its Chennai and Bangalore projects is much more than what they are offering us.”
DLF, which has reduced prices of apartments in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, already faces exits by as many 560 customers in a Chennai project.
New Town Heights, a residential project of DLF in sectors 90, 91 and 86 of Gurgaon, was launched in March last year as mid-range housing project with apartments selling in the Rs45-75 lakh range. The project has around 3,000 apartments, of which around 85% have been sold, according to the company.
DLF on 25 March announced a price cut of 20% for apartments in the New Town Heights project, for both existing as well as new customers. But the discount is structured in a complicated fashion and comes with conditions that do not allow customers to exit at a future date.