Breach Candy flat also goes for 33% less

Till a year ago, flats in Breach Candy commanded a rate of not less than Rs60,000 a sq ft (carpet area). No longer. On Monday, a 2,517 sq ft flat (super-built-up area), including terrace space that amounts to about 800 sq ft, was sold for about Rs6 crore. That works out to a rate of about Rs40,000 a sq ft of carpet area, down almost 33% from the peak.

The flat in the twelve-storey Mona Apartments, a stone’s throw from the Parsee General Hospital off Warden Road, was owned by the Delhi-based Modi Rubber. CB Richard Ellis, the global property consultant firm which conducted the auction, refused to comment saying the deal was yet to be inked.

This is the second property in South Mumbai in the past three weeks to be sold at a large discount. A little over three weeks ago, Philips India auctioned a 2,000 sq ft apartment in Citadel on Nepean Sea Road for Rs43,000 a sq ft - a discount of 33% over the rate of Rs65,000 that flats in the area were commanding less than a year ago.

In the past eight months, sales of some of the country’s most expensive apartments have been almost frozen. Premium projects have also bitten the dust. Oberoi Constructions has stopped sales in Oberoi Skyz, a 65-storey building coming up at Prabhadevi in Central Mumbai. It’s the same story at under-construction Lodha Bellissimo at Lower Parel and Ashok Gardens at Lalbaug.