Ajay Piramal-backed Indiareit Fund Advisers has picked up a stake in Valmark’s ₹600-crore villament project in Bengaluru.

Tejraj Gulecha, Chairman of Valmark Developers Pvt Ltd, said Indiareit will invest in the project which is expected to come up on a 35-acre land in south Bengaluru. He did not disclose the details of the stake as well as the amount of investment by Indiareit in the villament project, the biggest so far in Bengaluru.

2 phases The project will be completed in two phases and will have a total of 544 villaments and the first phase is expected to be completed by the January quarter of 2018. Indiareit will invest in the construction finance and they are likely to increase exposure in the project further.

Mamta Bharaktiya, Director, sales, Valmark, said each of the villaments could cost between ₹1.4 crore and ₹2.4 crore. A Bangkok-based architect firm has been hired to design the project.

The size of each of the villament will vary between 2,180 sq ft and 3,900 sq ft. About 20 units will be built in each acre with 75 per cent of the total land having open space.

Business models She said Valmark works on two business models: it enters into joint ventures with builders such as Brigade and Mantri for construction of the project with Valmark giving them land and the rest are self-executed projects. Valmark has so far completed 550-odd apartments and has four ongoing projects.

Bharaktiya said typically customers in Bengaluru buy apartments for their own use unlike Mumbai where a single property changes hands five to six times.

Valmark Director Ratan Lath said the Bengaluru real estate market is far less speculative than the other metros. “Therefore we believe that the rest of the country will take much longer to recover than Bengaluru,” he said.

He said Valmark has enough land bank to last for over three years.