The bubble of New Metro City Gujar Khan commercial plots seems to have burst before even fully bloating. The market seems jaded, and full of sellers with hardly any buyers. Those who were able to read the signs early and sell their files in time now say they made a good choice.
New Metro City Gujar Khan launched its commercial plots earlier this month amid great anticipation. The success of its residential segment naturally made investors expect the same for the commercial venture. But as it turns out, the plot files are already weighing heavily on dealers’ shoulders within weeks, with hardly any buyers in sight.
It was just a couple of days ahead of the official launch of commercial plots that New Metro City Gujar Khan shared the plot details. The available sizes were 2.66 Marla and 5 Marla with rates of Rs 4,750,000 and Rs 9,750,000 respectively. Both came with 2.5 years installment plans.
Here Are the Rates and Payment Plans for New Metro City Gujar Khan Commercial Plots
Things appeared fine at the start. The smaller plot sizes looked like they’d sell like hot cakes. The affordable (sort of) price point with 2.5-year installments made the properties look more accessible and desirable, especially in the backdrop of New Metro City Gujar Khan’s residential segment success.
But What Went Wrong?
Since the launch of New Metro City Gujar Khan itself, ProProperty was closely monitoring its market. And as the much-anticipated commercial plots arrived, we kept in touch with dealers and investors to see how the venture pans out vis-à-vis its preceding residential counterpart.
As per our assessment, there were two key factors that contributed to the New Metro City Gujar Khan’s commercial project failure: Small plot sizes and an army of dealers.
Plots Too Tiny for Commercial Activity
Investors didn’t show much interest in smaller plot sizes, especially the 2.66 Marla ones, contrary to expectations.
According to some dealers and investors we contacted in this regard, the fear that 2.66 Marla plots would be of little or no commercial use quickly shadowed the market; they may be fine for smaller commercial areas, but were a misfit for main commercial hubs.
“The market is overflowing with these plot files and nobody seems interested in buying them. Many of us have had to sell at breakeven or with a negative price or rebate. We have seen many instances where files were sold cheaper than they were bought,” a dealer told ProProperty.
According to him, and many others for that matter, the small plot sizes are to blame for the underwhelming market response to New Metro City Gujar Khan’s commercial venture.
Moreover, the ratio – in terms of the supply – of smaller 2.66 Marla plots, when compared to 5 Marla ones, was around 93%. This means that for every 93 smaller plots, there were just 7 comparatively bigger plots, which caused further devaluation of an already devalued property.
A Dealer in Every Corner
Our assessment also tells us that the other big reason for New Metro City Gujar Khan’s commercial plot failure was way too many dealers. They lowered the bar to become a dealership so much that an army of dealers emerged out of nowhere.
“Never have we seen so many people having official dealership of a project. It looked like every dealer in the market was also a New Metro City commercial dealer at the same time. So, naturally, the supply of files outstripped demand, and prices either stagnated or came down. It’s proved to be a failed strategy,” said another dealer while talking to ProProperty.
Housing societies always set a benchmark for their official dealerships, for which a limited number of people with the right profile may qualify. In New Metro City Gujar Khan commercial’s case, the benchmark was kept quite low to make more dealers sell more plots. That didn’t happen.
New Metro City and Its Controversies
New Metro City Gujar Khan has been surrounded by controversies since its launch. The biggest one is concerning its NOC status which the society and its higher-ups, on many occasions, have claimed to be approved. In actuality, it isn’t and the RDA approval is still pending.
Last month, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) booked 7 unlawful housing developments while registering FIRs and prohibiting them from advertising since the local government had not granted NOCs. New Metro City was one of them.
Questions were also raised about the approval of the society’s layout plans. Last month, Commissioner Rawalpindi Noorul Amin Mengal ordered an investigation against officials of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) for accepting the layout design of New Metro City Gujar Khan in violation of laws. The Punjab government removed him earlier this month.
New Metro City in Hot Waters After Rumors of ‘Unfair’ Early Bird Balloting
The society also came under scrutiny after news of ‘unfair’ early bird balloting arose. A number of real estate agents alleged that New Metro City distributed the balloted plots only among the ‘desired’ individuals.
Good initiative taken by rolling out perfect analyzation of the market