My journey to own home at Yelahanka...

It was early 2011, when I shifted to Bengaluru along with my family from Mumbai. It was a big change for us considering the lifestyles of these two completely different cities. However, a pleasant surprise for me to see the frequency of city buses running in Bengaluru (especially, when you are coming from place like Mumbai ).

I got employed in a big MNC and landed in North Bengaluru. Its never bad to start your job in Manyata Tech Park (http://embassyofficeparks.com/park/embassy-manyata/ ). You get to know a tons of IT professionals and get exposed to the bigger opportunities across companies.

As it happens in every married man's life, my wife starting pushing me to find a good home near Manyata Tech Park. Soon, I got lost in tons of real estate advertisements and phone calls from brokers. They really made my life miserable. These brokers reminded me of pains of clients in IT field, when some salesman would sold wrong product to meet his numbers. Brokers would show you only a home which you won't like and was rejected by earlier 999 customers.
Believe me, it is difficult to find suitable home for your family than finding girl for marriage.

No other choice, but I had to jot down top priorities that I wanted to see in my dream home. My better half shared her views too to make sure I am on track and do not become emotional!

The 3 factors that made me relocate to Yelahanka are:

1. The greenery, The peace & Sightseeing
I was looking for a less crowded place in Bengaluru. The chances of me getting promoted in my job were higher than this expectation.

To my surprise, my wife took me to a new site under construction in Yelahanka. This place was very little known in 2011. At least, I never heard of this place as a new Bangalorean and people there told me the city used to come to an end at Hebbal at one point of time. Yelahanka remained kind of unexplored area and just started to boom then.

Yelahanka has a privilege of hosting Air Force Station, CRPF, Lakes and other government/administrative offices. Due to these establishments, it was difficult to find suitable land in plenty which could have been used to raise a skyscraper for builders ( and ruin the peace ).

You can make use of this website to explore more about Yelahanka:
http://liveyelahanka.com/index.html

Yelahanka is lush green and blessed by nature. 

There are good numbers of lake here including Puttenahalli Lake, Attur Lake, Yelahanka Lake and Allalasandra Lake.
The attractive old temples and big children/joggers parks are big incentive to relocate to Yelahanka.
The bikers in Yelahanka can vouch for quite and silent areas spread around Yelahanka. One can buy fresh fruits from the farms in the neighbourhood villages.
Near by famous tourist spots are Nandi Hills, Ghati Subramanya Temple, Vidurashwatha Village and Lepakshi temple. Yelahanka Air Show is major attraction for the city and it happens every 2-3 years here. 


2. Education & Healthcare Institutions
Kids education and decent hospitals were our top priorities before we finalize the home. We did r&d to find out the quality of schools and hospitals available in Yelahanka. We found out following schools:
1. National Public School
2. Presidency School
3. Nagarjuna School
4. Delhi Public School
5. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar School
6. Vishwa Vidyapeeth School
7. Viveka Bala Mandira
There were few more schools which I have not mentioned here.

There were good hospitals available and few of those are mentioned here:
1. Columbia Asia, Doddaballapur Road & other one at Hebbal
2. Navachethana Hospital
3. Deeksha Hospital
4. Manasa Trinity Hospital

With good education and healthcare services set up, soon Yelahanka imbibed the metro culture as people from various walks of life made it their home.

With this analysis, we almost made up our mind to relocate to Yelahanka. However, the bigger problem still existed to find right home ( and by this time, the brokers got annoyed with me )!!

3. Real Estate Boom
Looking at the growth of North Bengaluru, the builders invaded the surrounding places of Hebbal like Sahakara Nagar, Amruthahalli, Kempapura etc. Soon they felt that they were losing the buyers from middle class society, due to escalated cost of properties ( Hebbal ), to Yelahanka.
Around 2012, a decent apartment was available at Rs. 3200 to Rs. 3400 range. Many investors then took the advantage of the opportunity and invested in Yelahanka including me ;)
We finalized our decision to buy home in Yelahanka as we found it relatively better place to live considering the less traffic aspect, proximity to offices, good schools in locality and cheaper real estate prices.

The demand for flats in Yelahanka has gone up and locality has developed cosmopolitan flavour.

We got the possession in late 2014 and since then enjoying the place very much.
The real estate market in Yelahanka got good push and the flat prices per sq ft rose to Rs. 5200+ per sq ft.

Future 
The upcoming projects near Yelahanka are Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) & Devanahalli  SEZ ( IT Park, Aero Park and Hardware Park ).
Yelahanka added feather to its cap when Apple took over 50k sq ft space in Yelahanka on lease in 2016.
Also, most of the IT companies have planned to move their facility towards Airport ( North Bengaluru ). Cognizant, IBM are the trendsetters and have their facility set up in Manyata Tech Park since few years now.
Yelahanka, undoubtedly, has a good potential to grow further more in upcoming years. And believe me, if you move here, Yelahanka will not disappoint you anytime....

North Bangalore - Growth and Future Potential

Bengaluru...the Silicon Valley of India. It is now becoming the second home to all the NRIs and for an obvious reason that Bengaluru has got a tremendous growth potential with respect to hosting the giant IT industry and booming real estate. Not to mention, the city is also known as "Pub Capital Of India" and is home to over 200 clubs and bars!

This post, however, is not going to focus on any IT companies in Bengaluru, but talks about the Northern side of city which is connected to Hyderabad/Nagpur [via Devanahalli] at one side and Mumbai [via Yashwantpur] on other. After setting up the Electronic City, Bengaluru was expanding a lot towards its Southern side [towards TN] , that hosts a lot of IT companies and industries. Again areas like Whitefield and Sarjapur Road are very well connected to the Southern side of Bengaluru. However the day Bengaluru International Airport became operational, the picture completely changed awarding high growth rate for real estate towards NH7 [new NH44] route.

It has been seen over years, that a city always expand towards the airport. Yelahanka is one such area which got highest real estate appreciation in last few years.

All major IT players, 5 stars hotels or Gated Communities tend to open their shop there and try to capitalize over it. Lets go through few reasons why investing in North Bengaluru would be a wise decision versus investing in other parts of city:


Bengaluru International Airport

The airport is located 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of Devanahalli and is 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the central business district of Bangalore, (30 kilometres (19 mi) from the Bangalore City Railway Station) and covers 5,130 acres (2,080 ha). It replaced the HAL airport. For the financial year 2011–12, it was the fourth busiest airport in the country in terms of overall passenger traffic of 12.69 million and fifth busiest in terms of international passenger traffic.

As the airport is 40 kilometres (25 mi) outside the city, a new high-speed rail link has been approved to connect the city to the airport. The high speed rail link would be integrated with the Bangalore Metro and would cover a distance of 33 kilometres (21 mi) with four stations: Cubbon Road (Terminal Station), Hebbal, Yelahanka, and Bangalore International Airport (Terminal Station).

A signal free road connectivity is already in progress and may be completed by 2013 year end.


ITIR [Information Technology Investment Region]

The ITIR is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Karnataka's history. Total cost is expected to be one lakh crore rupees ($22 Billion). The initiative will provide direct employment to 1.2 million people and indirect employment to 2.8 million. Development will involve a Centre-State partnership in conjunction with private partners. Basic infrastructure such as road, rail and telecommunication links will be provided by the Centre. The State governments will provide physical infrastructure and utilities, including power, water, sewerage and effluent treatment facilities. The Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (KEONICS) has recently issued Expression of Interest (EOI) for developing the region. Over 55 multinational IT companies including Infosys, Wipro, TCS, and Cognizant have signaled an interest in joining and have signed MOUs. The first phase of ITIR spread over 2,500-acre (10 km2) will be completed in by 2012, while the second and third phases will be built over the next five to ten years.


Peripheral Ring Road [PRR]

The 116 km road, that will circumnavigate the city, will ease traffic on the ORR by over 50 per cent and provide connectivity between State highways and national highways. The State government has given the green signal for the first phase covering 65 km between Hosur Road and Tumkur Road via Bellary Road. Phase I of PRR involves six-lane road construction of a total land area of 1980 acres along the project alignment. It will take 36 to 40 months to complete the project whose estimated cost is Rs. 5800 crore.
Once Phase I is completed, BDA is expected to take up Phase 2 of a total road length of 51 km, thus completing the PRR of total 116 km length to circumnavigate the city. Japan International Cooperation Agency (KICA) is the financing agency for the project.

Total length of PRR - 116 km ( Phase I - 65 km + Phase II - 51 km )
Road Width - Six lanes carriage way with each lane of width - 3.50m
Route - Tumkur Road to Hosur Road via Bellary Road and Old Madras Road
Location - 14-22 km from city center and 2.8km-11.5km from existing ORR

Bengaluru Aerospace Park

The Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board- Bengaluru Aerospace Park (KIADB- BAP). BAP is being developed as a world- class aerospace hub, located adjacent to the Bengaluru International Airport (BIAL). The park will be a state-of-the-art 985 acres facility accessed by key national highways. NH7, NH 4 and NH 207, also contains 252 acres Special Economic Zone(SEZ) within its precincts.

The BAP has already attracted considerable investor interest and project proposals of companies such as Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Jupiter Aviation, Dynamic Technologies, Centum Electronics, Starragheckert, AMADA, BEML, Wipro, Tyco, Dynatech, System Controls, Aero Electronics Private Limited and Several others have been approved.

Karnataka is now exempting stamp duty, offering subsidies, and providing many concessions to aerospace companies. 
While the government has already acquired 1,000 acres near Devanahalli, it is working on acquiring the remaining 2,000 acres. The park will be easily accessed via key national highways NH7, NH4 and NH207. The government is also promising a direct road link from the aerospace park to the airport, a technology innovation centre, and an international convention centre.



Manyata Embassy Business Park

Located on the Outer Ring Road, Manyata Embassy Business Park is easily accessible from the city centre, North, East and West Bangalore and is in close proximity to the new international airport.

Amenities offered within the business park include a multi- cuisine food court, visitors car park, 24 hour ambulance service, ATM and a fire station.

It has companies like IBM, Cognizant, Nokia Siemens Network India, Target Corporation and many more. 


Real Estate - Hebbal and Yelahanka/Doddaballapur Road

The prices of apartments, villas and plots are appreciating with nice pace in Hebbal/Yelahanka and Doddaballapur Road. Since 2010, Hebbal itself has shown around 59% rise in real estate property appreciation. Also, the Yelahanka Railway Station is being remodeled in coming days. This way additional trains can be started from Yelahanka Railway Station which will be a big relief to the north Bangalore residents. Also trains like Rajdhani can also introduce a stop at Yelahanka Railway Station going forward.

The major advantage of residing in this area is its close proximity to:
a. Palace Grounds
b. Majestic Railway Station
c. International Airport
d. ISKCON
e. KR Puram
f. Marathahalli
g. MG Road
h. Commercial Street
i. Yashwantpur Railway Station
k. Yelahanka Railway Station

The major real estate projects which are coming up here are as follows:
a. NCC [Nagarjuna] Meadows Phase II [Doddaballapur Road]
b. RMZ Galleria [Yelahanka]
c. Godrej Platinum [Hebbal]
d. Brigade Caladium [Hebbal]
e. Provident Welworth City [Doddaballapur Road]
f. Purvankara Venezia
g. NCC [Nagarjuna] Aster Park [Yelahanka]
h. RMZ Latitude [Hebbal]

The schools in North Bengaluru are:
1. National Public School, Yelahanka
2. Presidency School, Yelahanka
3. Vidyaniketan
4. Delhi Public School, North Bengaluru
5. Euroschool, North Bengaluru
6. Sindhi School, Hebbal
7. Kensri School, Hebbal
The icing on the cake would be completion of Namma Metro phase that connects Nagawara to rest of city! With given timeframe of 2-3 years down the line, North Bengaluru is going to be the new destination to watch out for.