Radhakishan Damani, the well known investor and founder of retail chain D-Mart, has bought a residential property in South Mumbai’s posh Malabar Hill for Rs 1,001 crore.

This is the largest residential property transaction in the country at least in recent years. Damani bought the two-storey property located on Narayan Dabholkar Marg in Malabar Hill along with his younger brother Gopikishan Damani.

The transaction was registered on March 31 and the Damanis paid a stamp duty of Rs 30 crore for the property.

The property has an area of around 61,000 sq.ft and the value of the property based on the ready reckoner rate of the Maharashtra government is around Rs 724 crore.

The property was purchased from Purachand Roychand & Sons, Pareshchand Roychand & Sons and Premchand Roychand & Sons.

This mega deal comes just days after reports of Damani purchasing an 8-acre plot in Thane, Maharashtra from Mondelez (earlier Cadbury India) for Rs 250 crore. Recently, Avenue Supermarts the parent of D-Mart also purchased two floors of 39,000 sq.ft carpet area at Chembur in Mumbai for over Rs 100 crore.

India’s real estate has witnessed a recovery and within that the residential segment is doing well because of attractive interest rates (which are at 15-year lows), discounts offered by developers and reduction in stamp duties.

The Maharashtra government had reduced the stamp duty on property registrations to 3 per cent from 5 per cent till March 31 this year.

The state had reduced the stamp duty to 2 per cent between August and December 2020 to boost the real estate market hit hard by Covid-19. The rate was changed to 3 per cent between January 1 and March 31.

According to a recent report from Anarock Property Consultants, even as the region’s COVID-19 case count continued piling up, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) emerged as one of the most buoyant residential markets in the first quarter of 2021. It saw the highest yearly decline of 8 per cent in total unsold housing stock by the end of the quarter – from 2,13,180 units as on the same period last year to 1,97,040 units. It was the highest year on year decline of unsold housing inventory in the last seven years. In previous years, MMR’s stock either increased over last year or declined by upto three per cent.

“Mumbai is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world,” Anuj Puri, Chairman – ANAROCK Property Consultants said. He added that a reduction in overall acquisition cost by anything between 5-15 per cent made a huge difference in buyer sentiments. Further, low home loan interest rates and developer discounts, and timely intervention of the government by ways of stamp duty reductions also helped the region get its mojo back even during COVID-19.

The Avenue Supermarts stock ended at Rs 2911.40 in the BSE on Friday, leading to a market cap of Rs 1,88,593.12 crore. The promoters hold close to 75 per cent thus putting the value of their holding at nearly Rs 1,41,445 crore.