Noida Extension, an upcoming suburb around the national capital region (NCR), was one of the most promising affordable housing destinations across India. With Gurgaon and main Noida area in NCR going out of budget for most middle income professionals, Noida Extension offered an opportunity for home buyers with budget in 20-30 lacs bracket. With the additional back up of superior infrastructure like highways, hospitals and educational institutions in the neighboring Noida area, the property prices in Noida extension were anticipated to escalate since its conceptualization. The fate of this concept was threatened when the farmers near Greater Noida decided to move to the court, challenging acquisition of their land for developing Noida Extension. This issue was aggressively debated among various stockholders, including home buyers, builders, farmers, noida authority and the legal system, each blaming the other for the problem. 

What followed was a pitch battle in the courts and finally after over 12 months of delay Allahabad High Court dismissed the review petition filed by the farmers and directed the Greater Noida authority to get clearance from the NCR Planning Board for its master plan, and proceed with the development process. Farmers further challenged the decision of the High Court and moved to Supreme Court. Intelligently the Supreme Court clubbed around 30 cases that were filed on various similar grounds to gave a just and uniform verdict to both farmers and home buyers. According to the Supreme Court verdict, 64.7% additional amount and 10% of the developed plot has to be given to farmers as compensation for their land which was acquired by flouting the norm.

Post the judgment, the Noida authority has planned to give Rs 1,100 crore more to the farmers, as part of compensation. Out of this the Noida authority has passed on 50% of this burden to builders in the affected area. The Greater Noida authority has started collecting money from Builders and individual residential plot allottees. The Builders in the affected area are still debating whether to charging additional amount from existing home buyers (which will violate their contractual obligations) or to pass the entire burden among new buyers (which will make their project costly and in some cases un-competitive).

The court verdict, in many ways, has cleared the ambiguity surrounding the entire real estate climate in Noida Extension. The judgment has come as a temporary relief not just for the home buyers who have invested but also the developers in this area who are building the projects. The projects in Greater Noida are in various stages of development and Home buyers can expect to get the possession in next 30-60 months depending up on the reputation of the builders. On the positive side, if there are no further issues, home buyers can expect a fair appreciation of around 10-20% p.a from their investment in Noida Extension. According to makaan.com price trends, the average per square feet (psf) property rates in Noida Extension has moved up from 1991/- in Sept’11 to 2754/- in Sept’12 and appreciation of  34.29% in the last one year. Most of this appreciation (28.61%) has happened in past 6 months. My advice to investors will be to stay invested in the project for a long term return.