Rates in DHA Multan surge in anticipation of official launch

The official launch of DHA Multan appeared really close when I covered the project in my blog last time in April. Sadly, the status is still the same. Furthermore, the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) hasn’t given its stance on the official launch either.

That said, there has still been a very positive development – something that matters to investors the most: rates of DHA Multan plot files have spiked from PKR 3,250,000 in April 2016 to PKR 4,350,000 in June.

This price rise of 33.85% in less than two month says a lot about how anxiously investors and stakeholders of DHA Multan await the official launch. This also reflects their trust in the project.

If you monitor on-ground activities as well as how the DHA administration has amazed investors by expediting the land acquisition process, you can expect that the official launch would take place soon.

I admire this philosophy of setting up everything right for the official launch, which in case of DHA Multan has strengthened the project further. Before I give you details on what’s actually happening in terms of development and land acquisition, let’s have a look at the price trends these plot files recorded between Jan 2015 and May 2016.

Price trends

Back in January 2015, the market rate of 1-kanal residential files was PKR 2,800,000, which rose to PKR 3,000,000 in January 2016. While this price rise of 7.14% was a decent one, these files still had a big margin to grow and by then, investors had also realised the potential of the project.

Due to high demand, the rates increased further by a whopping 45% in the first 5 months of 2016. Today, these files are short in the market and the owners willing to sell them are demanding PKR 4,350,000. Please see the graph below to have an idea of how rates in DHA Multan have fared between Jan 2015 and May 2016:

Future potential

By the time of launch, which according to my sources can take place anytime now, file rates will increase further. It is believed that official rate of files on cash would be more than PKR 5,300,000 (an addition of At least PKR 1,000,000 to the current market rate). In terms of percentage, estimated price rise would roughly  be 22%. This means that you can still make the move to capitalise on DHA Multan.

Current status

In total, 4,300 acres of land has been purchased for DHA Multan so far, which seems to be a sufficient area to launch Phase I.

The DHA has stopped acquiring more land. However, the official investors, who purchased land on behalf of the developer, might still be allowed to deal with landowners having their land within the bounds of Phase I because the phase still has some land pockets, spanning 50 acres in total, here and there. The developer would ideally like this phase to have no land pockets but it doesn’t really matter.

Currently, the construction work is being carried out on entrance gate, main boulevard and the boundary wall. These activity signals that DHA Multan will be launched soon. According to the sources I conversed with, the developer plans to launch the project after Ramadan and offer files on cash as well as instalments. In any case, the rates are bound to increase. So there is no reason to be discouraged by the present price hike. In other words, buy more files ASAP.