Juhu Beach Road culture comes to Vijayawada city

Property owners in the capital region and more so in the city, are putting up ‘Not for sale’ boards to keep realtors away. Interest of realtors in prime properties has peaked, following the region being designated as the capital. Sastry, who has a house in Suryaraopet, first observed the ‘Not for sale’ boards along Juhu Beach in Mumbai and adopted the method to keep realtors at bay

It is quite an unusual sight for prospective buyers and tenants. The ‘Not for sale’ boards in front of houses in a prime location such as Suryaraopet looks strange.

After Vijayawada was designated as the capital of the residual Andhra Pradesh, many house and land owners, who are eager to cash in on the realty boom, have set up sale boards. Real estate developers have also started looking for dilapidated houses and vacant lands in prime areas to buy the property at a lesser price. It is a known fact that owners of dilapidated houses will not leave them to decay without renovating them, if they have enough money. Same is the case with owners of vacant lands.

A three-decade-old house standing at Nakkal Road, opposite a super specialty heart care centre, has enough space for a comfortable living and a garden. When the Vijayawada Hans contacted its owner, Sastry, a retired Indian Economic Service officer, said that he put up the notice to avoid trouble from a slew of real estate agents, developers and corporate bigwigs who were keen on purchasing the prime property at any cost, knowing that its value would certainly rise manifold in the future. But Sastry wasn’t lured by the ‘crazy’ price quoted by realtors and corporate bigwigs for the property.

Explaining the intimidation and pressure he faced from prospective buyers, which forced him in putting up the notice, Sastry said, “I received a phone call late at night, asking me to sell my house. I was inconvenienced by realtors several times later. I am not ready to sell the house at any cost. When I visited Mumbai once, I saw houses along Juhu Beach road displaying similar boards. I immediately implemented it here to avoid unnecessary trouble from realtors and their agents.’’

Suggesting the house owners to put up similar boards to keep real estate agents away, he said, “It will also ensure security to women living alone in the house after other members of the family leave for the day. There is every possibility of anti-social elements entering the houses in the guise of real estate agents with an intention to commit a crime.’’

It is not Sastry alone who is reluctant to sell his property. There are many other people who do not want to part with their property and are fully aware of the fact that it is not so easy to own a house at some other place after disposing of their present property. With the increase in apartment culture, the number of individual houses is declining. Also, there is a space crunch, which has become severe in the proposed capital, as the government is also looking for suitable land to construct public utilities.