Something’s brewing on the outskirts of Chennai city. In a couple of months, an auto rail hub (the first of its kind), will come up in the Walajabad region about 70 kilometers away from Chennai. With the potential to handle over a million four-wheelers, the auto hub is drawing immense interest from both automobile companies as well as developers who are counting on the region becoming a new property hotspot.

Auto Hub To Boost Residential Demand

The Oragadam-Sriperumbathur-Walajabad belt is already home to a number of automobile companies like Hyundai, Renault, Nissan and BMW and thousands of employees already work in the region. Employees like 45-year TT Rao who love their job, but have spent a long time trying to find a home close to their office.

“When industries are coming, jobs are there. When jobs are there, people have to live near their place of work, so we need more apartments and villas here.” says Rao. The need for residential housing will only increase once the auto hub comes up and along with it, social and infrastructural development will have to keep pace.

The good news is that developers have already sensed an opportunity and big names like Arun Excello, Casa Grande, Hiranandini, Alliance and Inno GEO city are scrambling to launch projects here

Plotted Layout Scores Over Villas & Apartments

In a surprising twist, although apartments and villas are available, it is plots of land that are seeing the most demand with developers offering plotted layouts ranging from 600 to 2,400 sq. foot in the region. “Consumers are happy to pick up something like this because it is really an investment and if they cannot build a house immediately, they can plan and build one after a couple of years.” says Jayant Hemdev, Vice President at Hemdev’s Real Estate.

Developers are clearly betting on this belt rapidly developing and are packaging the region as the next OMR of Chennai. “This location will start performing better than many other locations like OMR etc. Consumers can choose to live here themselves or lease out their homes and get rental incomes.” says Arun Kumar, managing director of Casa Grande.

While that is good to hear, the region still needs a lot of work to improve its connectivity and infrastructure. That is why developers are offering integrated townships to sweeten the deal for homebuyers. There is talk of a rail hub coming up here as well, but that will depend on the upcoming elections and the government that comes into power.

Reporter: Smitha TK, NDTV
Web Editor: Nikhil Narayan Sivadas, NDTV