Maharashtra real estate: No buyers for 13 ‘affordable’ MHADA homes

MHADA couldn't sell 13 of 2,030 affordable homes in Mumbai, despite 134,350 applications. Unsold flats will be available in the next lottery draw.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) was unable to sell all 2,030 “affordable” houses it offered at various locations across Mumbai. Thirteen homes remained unsold, of which two were designated for the High Income Group (HIG) and the remaining 11 for the Middle Income Group (MIG). (SEE BOX)

Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) launched its housing lottery with over 2,000 affordable homes in Mumbai. (Mehul R Thakkar/HT)

This edition of Mhada’s housing lottery draw had 2,030 tenements, spread across all four income groups. Economically Weaker Section (EWS) had 359 units, LIG had 627 tenements, 768 homes for MIG and 276 under HIG.

Among the MIG category, nine unsold flats are at Anand Heights in Wadala’s Antop Hill area. The building is located on a congested Shaikh Mistry Road, next to Acharya Atre Nagar Monorail Station. The unsold flats were marked for the general public (5), scheduled caste (3) and scheduled tribe (1). A total of 15 flats were available in the building - 14 under MIG and 1 under HIG.

In the open market, similar-sized or slightly smaller flats in this building are available for less than Mhada’s price, said local property consultants. A flat of around 700-750 sq ft is sold for around ₹1.70 crore, while the price ranges between ₹2.03 crore to ₹4.11 crore in the lottery for flats above 900 sq ft.

The two unsold flats are located in Byculla ( ₹2.39 crore) and Malwani, Malad ( ₹55.09 lakh). At Byculla, the house with a no-show was reserved for a scheduled caste individual, and no takers were found. The only home at Malwani is a carry-forward from the previous lottery draw.

In the case of unsold HIG homes, one each is from JVPD in Juhu and another from Sion. At JVPD’s Juhu Vikrant Society, 17 apartments received 335 applications. The one that had no application was reserved for an ex-serviceman. In this building, the apartments are above 1,000-1,100 sq ft and command anywhere above ₹7 crore. However, in the lottery draw, such pricey homes were available for around ₹4.87 crore.

In the case of Sion’s Heritage, only one home was available for ₹1.95 crore, reserved for defence families. “As is the norm, these unsold flats will be available for sale in the next edition of the housing lottery draw. All the homes are meant to be sold through the lottery process,” said an official.

All six apartments under HIG for the most expensive homes ever by Mhada, for ₹7.58 crore at Crescent Tower, Tardeo, received 43 applications. These were first introduced by Mhada in the 2023 lottery draw, but did not generate interest among the public, hence, were put out again this year.

For 2,030 homes, Mhada had received an overwhelming 1,34,350 applications of which 1,31,811 were with the requisite refundable earnest money deposit. Only those applications with the refundable deposit amount were eligible to participate in the lottery draw held on October 8. This meant an average of 56 applications per home, more than 2023’s edition when there were 29 contenders for each tenement. In 2023, Mhada had put out 4,082 homes and had received 1,20,144 applications.