MVL iPark (MVL iTech Park) Office for Sale, Sector 15 Gurgaon

The published sale rates for this building do not agree, and the disagreement is not noise. It is a pattern, and once you see it the building becomes easy to read: the smaller the unit, the more each square foot costs, and the gap between the ends is not ten or twenty per cent. It is closer to four times.

Four figures are on the record. A resale index puts the building's average at Rs 13,800 per sq ft against Rs 15,100 for Sector 15 as a whole. The listed price range runs from Rs 1.2 crore to Rs 17 crore across units of 1,000 to 22,500 sq ft. And one resale listing asks Rs 1.5 crore for 500 sq ft of carpet area — Rs 30,000 per sq ft.

What the range implies, unit by unit

The listings do not pair each price with each size, so one step here is an assumption and we will name it: the natural reading is that the Rs 17 crore ceiling is the 22,500 sq ft unit and the Rs 1.2 crore floor is a 1,000 sq ft one. On that reading:

Rs 70 per sq ft a month is Rs 840 a year, and that is the rent the letting side of this same building is quoted at. Because the rent is flat across sizes and the price per foot is not, the yield is decided almost entirely by how big a unit you buy. An investor buying 22,500 sq ft is on double the return of one buying 1,000, in the same lobby, from the same market.

The Rs 30,000 figure, and why it is not comparable

Rs 1.5 crore for 500 sq ft is Rs 30,000 per sq ft, which looks like a different building. It is stated on carpet area, and every other number on this page is on a chargeable or super basis.

Office buildings of this vintage in Gurugram commonly load 35 to 40 per cent onto carpet to reach chargeable area. Convert at that loading and Rs 30,000 carpet is somewhere around Rs 18,000 to Rs 19,500 chargeable — still the most expensive reading in the building, which is what a 500 sq ft unit should be, but no longer a different planet.

We are not going to print the converted figure as a fact, because the listing does not state its loading and we have not seen the floor plan. The point is the instruction: a commercial rate with no area basis attached is not a rate. Ask which basis, get it in writing, and do the division yourself.

A nine per cent discount to its own sector

Rs 13,800 against Sector 15's Rs 15,100 is a discount of about nine per cent to the sector the building stands in. Discounts like that are information, and the two plausible explanations both matter to a buyer.

The first is the tenant market. This is an IT and ITeS building on about 3.67 acres with roughly 1.60 lakh sq ft, right on NH-8 opposite Signature Towers, with a floor plate of about 23,333 sq ft — large by the standards of this research, and therefore let to a narrower set of occupiers than a small-suite building. Large plates let well in a good market and sit empty in a bad one.

The second is the one the letting page goes into: the developer's own record, and the fact that this building is marketed under two names. Read that page before you make an offer; it is the half of this transaction that a price index does not carry.

Two names for one building, and what it does to your search

This row calls it MVL iTech Park. The portals, JLL and the resale indices call it MVL iPark. Some records add Sector 15 Part II, and some place it at Chander Nagar on NH-8.

For a buyer that has a concrete cost. Search one name and you see part of the market; search the other and you see a different part, at different prices, and you have no way to tell you have missed anything. Before making an offer, search both names and both sector descriptions, and compare what comes back. On a building where the per-foot rate varies four-fold by unit size, missing half the listings is the difference between the top of the range and the bottom.

Where this sits against the rest of the batch

Rs 7,556 to Rs 13,800 per sq ft is not expensive for Gurugram office space. For scale, a small suite in Millennium Plaza off MG Road is asked at Rs 18,142, and the cheapest commercial floor area this research has found anywhere is about Rs 3,077 per sq ft built-up in the Pace City industrial estate, where the land is allotted for industrial use.

On the letting side the same ordering holds: Rs 70 here, Rs 90 to Rs 100 at Millennium Plaza, Rs 90 to Rs 140 at Orchid Centre on Golf Course Road. What makes this building interesting is not its position on that ladder. It is that the rent is flat and the price is not, so the same building sells at two quite different returns depending on the cheque you write.

What to settle before you pay a deposit

• The area basis of the price, in writing. Carpet, built-up or super — the difference here is the difference between six per cent and eleven.
• Whether the unit is let, to whom, on what unexpired term. A large plate with a departing tenant is the worst version of this asset.
• What maintenance costs and who pays it. On the ladder this batch has built, a Rs 14 to Rs 26 per sq ft monthly charge is Rs 170 to Rs 310 a year, and a landlord carrying it loses one to two percentage points of yield.
• Both names, searched. MVL iPark and MVL iTech Park return different listings.
• The developer's standing and the association's no-dues position, before any earnest money moves.

Frequently asked questions

What does office space cost to buy in MVL iTech Park, Sector 15 Gurgaon?

The resale index average is Rs 13,800 per sq ft, against Rs 15,100 for Sector 15 as a whole. Listed prices run from Rs 1.2 crore to Rs 17 crore across units of 1,000 to 22,500 sq ft, and one 500 sq ft listing asks Rs 1.5 crore, which is Rs 30,000 per sq ft of carpet area. All are asking prices rather than registered transactions.

Why do the per-square-foot rates differ so much within one building?

Because unit size drives the rate here more than anything else does. Read the Rs 17 crore ceiling as the 22,500 sq ft unit and it is about Rs 7,556 per sq ft; read the Rs 1.2 crore floor as a 1,000 sq ft unit and it is Rs 12,000; the building average is Rs 13,800; and the 500 sq ft listing is Rs 30,000 on carpet. The pairing of the extreme prices to the extreme sizes is our reading, not the listing's, and we say so on the page.

What rental yield does it produce?

The building lets at about Rs 70 per sq ft a month, or Rs 840 a year, and that rate does not vary much by unit size. So the gross yield is about 11.1 per cent on a Rs 7,556 purchase, 7.0 per cent at Rs 12,000, and 6.1 per cent at the Rs 13,800 average. Maintenance, if the landlord carries it, takes one to two percentage points off each of those.

Is Rs 30,000 per sq ft really the rate here?

Not on the same basis as the rest of the page. That figure is stated on carpet area while the others are chargeable or super, and buildings of this vintage commonly load 35 to 40 per cent onto carpet. We have not printed a converted figure because the listing does not state its loading, and the useful conclusion is the general one: a commercial rate with no area basis attached cannot be compared with anything.

Why does the building trade below its own sector average?

Rs 13,800 against Rs 15,100 is about nine per cent. Two explanations are available and both are worth checking: the floor plate of roughly 23,333 sq ft suits a narrower set of occupiers than a small-suite building, which makes letting lumpier; and the developer's own record, set out on the letting page for this building, is something a buyer should read before making an offer.

Is this MVL iPark or MVL iTech Park?

One building, two names. The portals, JLL and the resale indices use MVL iPark; this listing and some brochures use MVL iTech Park, and records variously place it in Sector 15, Sector 15 Part II or at Chander Nagar on NH-8. Search both names before you make an offer, because each returns listings the other does not.