Creating new benchmarks

Duville Estates is a real estate venture from the Dubash family who have been in business since 1810. The main line of business was shipping prior to the diversification into other sectors. Duville Estates has accumulated several land parcels over the last few decades and the 31 Acre micro township called ‘Riverdale’ is its premier large-scale real estate development project. The Dubash family have completed over 11 residential and 3 commercial developments that have been built over the years in the South of Mumbai and Mumbai’s northern suburbs. The vision of Duville Estates is to give its customers a superior product that will exceed their expectations and create new benchmarks for the industry.

Duville Estates has partnered with the best-in-class experts from across the globe to ensure that the vision of its Chairman, Mr. Behram Dubash are perfectly met. This straddles the master planning of the project by globally acclaimed master planning & elevation specialists – UHA London to the construction by India’s giant – Shapoorji Pallonji to ensure that Riverdale becomes a landmark in Pune.

VISIONARY CONCEPTS BEING DEPLOYED

We’re amongst a few developers in the Pune market place using ‘MONOLITHIC CONSTRUCTION’ i.e Aluminium Wall and Slab System Formwork for our high-rise construction. This construction technology is usually used in earthquake resistant structures and delivers surfaces that are of very high quality in terms of finish and especially smoothness. This allows for higher durability, delivers superior strength which is crack-free and water resistant. Lastly, this helps in accelerating the pace of construction progress.

The building design uses full length unitised glass curtain walls which are heat strengthened. This allows for large amounts of light to enter the home. There is also an advanced water-proofing system that is in place which is acrylic polymer based. There are 4 intermediary layers of application over the RCC Slab that ensure the most robust water-proofing system possible. With a clear intent to alleviate the perennial suffering of leakages that plague the bathroom areas in a home, we’ve deployed the ‘Únder Slung Plumbing System’. This completely eliminates the breakage involved in accessing the leakage area and allowing for non-intrusive access, fast repairs, replacements or maintenance work that is required in the bathroom and toilet plumbing through underneath ducting.

THE CURRENT MARKET SCENARIO – OUR PRODUCT OFFERING AND ITS DEMAND

There will always be buyers for better value products, even in a market that is riddled with pressure from pricing and where the weighted average pricing per square foot has not moved significantly. This is primarily due to the external influences of supply being pushed into the market places, especially into the periphery of the city. In the central part of the city and in further areas which have become now the central business hubs and where residential has sprung up significantly, the prices have been moving up given the relative scarce availability of a good residential product. What has also impacted demand for a good residential product is the infrastructure that is available for commute and in specific the kind of infrastructure which does not grind traffic to an absolute halt during peak hours making commute simply unbearable and contributes to a dramatic negative in terms of the quality of life being affected given the number of hours that get spent simply in travel to work and back to their residence.

While the overall input of new launches have been substantially reduced, the established brand names have introduced new inventory and new phases into an existing township or development. We have introduced our 3 BHK premium plus product offering into the market place with Riverdale Residences. Strategically located on the most important thorough fare to come up in Kharadi, the Kharadi – Riverside road, this route will take one through to Kalyani Nagar in a tad over 10 minutes from Riverdale Residences. Given its location at the vital intersection of the 30 Mtr. Road that will take one to the Kharadi Bypass in one direction, the Kharadi South Main Road junction at the other and onwards to Kalyani Nagar in the future, there can be no better location for anyone wanting to move in or simply invest in a premium property at Kharadi of which the supply in itself is so scarce.

Given the very low input of new inventory in to the market place and a much higher sell-out ratio, this has had a positive impact on the available inventory that is available for sale in Kharadi. The share of units in the premium plus category has gone up, the customer demand has gone up and there is also an uptick in the consumer sentiment for a home that straddles the best fit quality vs price, even in the context of a market that is tightly driven by aggressive pricing. There is a definitive trend that is being seen in the end user segment witnessed even in the luxury segment.

At the opposite end of the price & size spectrum, while unit sizes lesser than 600 Sq. Ft. contribute to approximately 27% of the market by share, we have a very unique sized offering in the market with a lesser than 400 Sq. Ft. Given the nature of the demographics that work in the Central Business Area of Kharadi, this product, Riverdale Suites occupies a distinct advantage from an early age buyer as well as for those who are looking at intelligently diversifying their portfolio allocation without putting in too heavy an investment, essentially under 40L.

Even in the popular sized segment of a unit offering of in between 600 – 800 Sq. Ft. that contributes to 24% of market share, we have an offering that occupies a very optimized sizing of in between 650 and 675 Sq. Ft. of carpet area. This product, Riverdale Heights is nearing completion with delivery scheduled by Mid next year.

CORE BUSINESS STRENGTH & VALUES

Being positioned in the minds of our audiences is obviously important, but I would think that in this Industry it is important not for the company and its brand to speak but for its customers and the audiences that it communicates with to speak on behalf of them. And this is best understood from the commitments that the developer makes and the promises that are kept. On Riverdale Heights, our 2 Bed offering, we are ahead of timelines in terms of progress and the structure is standing at the 23^rd floor with all other progress in parallel being completed. This is absolute testimony to the commitment made as well as the guarantee to the quality of construction.

One of our core strengths is to stay rooted to the basic tenets of real estate development which is to ensure the highest quality of construction standards. While the construction cost becomes one of the most important determinants to pricing, we have ensure that the quality benchmarks that we have envisioned remains as per the best-in-class benchmarks. We have appointed Shapoorji Pallonji as out construction partner who are among the best construction brands in the country if not the best. And if this was not enough, we have further appointed Masters to be able to perform a concurrent audit on a day–to–day basis on the construction materials and progress. And to top this still further, we have got CQRA to provide yet another independent audit on the construction progress.

To shed light on the values we persevere with. We, at Duville Estates have been enormously blessed with our values being handed down to us. We, essentially borrow from our time-tested ideology that the parent company, DBC Sons and the Dubash family have followed ever since our inception in 1810, a few centuries ago. Therefore, at Duville Estates, we have partnered with the best-in-class brands and consultants to deliver a home that will yield an unparalleled value. Under the leadership of highly experiences professionals, both partners and within the company, our legacy will deliver yet another landmark called Riverdale, a 31-acre micro geography at the most promising micro geography in Kharadi-Pune. I’d like to conclude with sharing that we will give our customers a superior product that will exceed expectations and create new benchmarks in this industry.