Lahore Real Estate

Lahore Real Estate follows the global cycle!

Lahore Real Estate is something not different from the worldwide real estate. It has experienced its similar cyclic patterns like ups & downs in the past history.

After stabilizing from the worldwide recession of 2008-2012, real estate in Lahore has also started gaining strength once again.

It is important to note the mostly and largely all real estate transactions are conducted & facilitated by real estate dealers who charge 1% commission from buyer and 1% from Seller plus there are taxes to be paid largely by buyer and few by the seller.

Lahore has always been a haven for good real estate investment, due to its city profile.

We also analyze Lahore real estate market trends from time to time in bring to you useful information for your benefit.

The best transparency & safety of transactions however exists in DHA Lahore.

How it all began – the story of DHA Lahore. It all started from very humble beginnings in 1975 to turn into the most attractive lifestyle residential community in 2010 which has become Pakistan’s leading Housing Society. The same DHA brand now exists in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi with their separate administrative structures.

Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Lahore  has become a brand name to rely upon, for now and the future.

DHA has radically grown from 4 to 11 phases. Phases 1 -6 have been developed in accordance with the latest trends and highest standards of town planning, engineering, designing and construction.

Every investment opportunity has its own risks, whether its stock market, commodities, foreign currency or real estate sector. These investment sectors have seen its ups and downs many times in Pakistan. But perhaps the most important lesson and wisdom always seem lost somewhere.

It is an established understanding that the common person is not fully aware of the investment opportunities and doesn’t know well how to make ‘money from money’ successfully and efficiently. And why should he be concerned? He usually has meager resources and he is mostly concerned about meeting his own daily needs.

But the problem starts when he gets carried away with the market trends and starts listening to those people who lure him into what it seems to be the ‘right things to do’ at that time.

There are usually two kinds of customers in real estate industry. The first kind is those people who are just interested to buy a house or piece of land to construct their homes and the other kind is looking for investment opportunity in real estate to make profits after its liquidation.

Both types of customers are different in nature and have different psyche and requirements. But both provide fuel to the real estate industry. Apparently the second kind (investors) usually outnumbers the first kind (the end users).

Another interesting aspect in these two kinds of real estate buyers is that the end users also sometimes want to become investors and would not mind if they happen to gain something on it. After all nobody minds extra cash coming in the way. But the problem starts when the end user is not fully equipped with the investment skill set and abilities. Just like engineer cannot do the job of a doctor and vice versa, similarly if someone is not in habit of checking the real estate price trends in the newspapers, not knowing much about the real estate fluctuations and doesn’t know the reasons behind them, and doesn’t have much grasp over the real estate industry about which areas are going strong and which are showing dips; with such weak knowledge, how one can become an overnight investor in real estate? That is one of the primary reasons that common people happen to lose most of their savings.

I remember the time back in Jan 2012 (not very long ago), one of my relatives in US was interested to buy a commercial plot of 8 marlas in Phase 6 of DHA Lahore. Price at that time was around Rs.3.3 crores. The deal was almost negotiated but later due to some other priorities, my relative could not buy.  In the mid of 2013 the price of the same piece of and had appreciated  to Rs.5 + crores.  The opportunity loss was almost Rs. 1.5 crores, equivalent of 1.2 million of income per month. Well, this is the financial side of the story and especially during the time, when the market suddenly went to its boom and got inflated pretty quickly as well as unexpectedly.

Having provided this one-off example illustrates that the investment in commercial properties provides much more potential for high earnings in many ways. Irrespective of the fact that whether it is boom time or gloom time, the commercial properties can provide the bread and butter lifelong.

The only deterring factor is that due to the high commercial prices the ordinary buyers do not have the capacity to invest. It is largely reserved for the deep pocket investors.

As per the report by Zameen.com published in daily ‘Tribune’ on 8th Oct, 2012, following are the highlights of Lahore Real Estate Market.

When it comes to home ownership, most Pakistanis appear to prefer buying land and building the home themselves rather than buying a readymade house, according to data compiled by real estate website Zameen.com.

The insights offered are somewhat surprising. The data suggests that almost 61% of the searches on the zameen.com website are for empty plots of residential land, as opposed to houses. Residential real estate inquiries themselves amount to about half of the total inquiries on the website, with the remainder focusing largely on commercial and industrial real estate.

While the 61% number may be skewed slightly, owing to a larger volume of inquiries from real estate developers, it nonetheless does suggest a clear pattern: despite the advent of large residential developments made by real estate companies, a significant proportion of Pakistanis still prefer buying the land themselves and having their homes custom-built.

We all know that Karachi is probably the worst place to live in if you own an expensive mobile phone. Really bad choice that. Karachi is widely touted to be the real estate capital of the country. But that title is now under threat from both Lahore Real Estate and Islamabad. Despite having taken a huge hit over the past couple of years, the city’s real estate market still has some life left in it, but maybe not for long.

According to data provided by Zameen.com – which is Pakistan’s largest real estate portal – recent trends show that investors no longer consider Karachi their first, or even second choice for that matter, when it comes to making investment decisions. This is specifically true when it comes to buying a house. But if it is real estate – specifically residential land – you want to buy, if you invest in Karachi, you still cannot go wrong. But even here, Karachi is losing ground – literally.

Lahore real estate is now the first choice for real estate investors, with Islamabad a close second. According to Zameen.com search trends, in the first half of 2012, there were 2.2 million searches for real estate in Lahore followed closely by Islamabad at 2.1 million. Karachi was a distant third at just 1.5 million searches. The monthly trend gives no real indication that this slide is likely to reverse in the near future.

Budget 2014-15 - Increased Taxes in Real Estate Dealings (Art-6)

New budget 2014-15 have brought new additional charges for the real estate industry. The main stakeholders who largely include property dealers are already opposing the new taxes and charges. They have made various protests. But the fact remains that the new taxes have been implemented effective from 1st July, 2014.

We present the brief summary below:

There are mainly three government taxes on the real estate transactions in the form of CVT,  Stamp duty and Advance tax (Capital Gains Tax)

Stamp duty increased to 3% from 2%. CVT duty remains the same at 2%. Advance tax increased to 1% from 0.5%.

DC Value has increased from 30 to 80% in different areas of Lahore.

 What is DC Value?