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Aim to give Goans affordable housing: Prathamesh

There may not be much similarities between real-estate, events and clothing, which are the three businesses Prathamesh D. Naik has built in a short period of time. But, it is his passion and willingness to take risks, which are the driving forces behind his entrepreneurial ventures

the goan I network | JANUARY 15, 2018, 05:57 PM IST
Aim to give Goans affordable housing: Prathamesh

PANAJI
At a time when almost everyone in real-estate industry is focusing on building apartments, Prathamesh D. Naik, proprietor of Goan Paradise Properties & Goan Priority Construction, has taken a different way by buying large parcels of land and sub-dividing them into plots. His objective is to provide affordable plots to people of Goa on which they can build their dream home.
Prathamesh said, "I purchase land and get all the permissions from Town and Country Planning Dept. (TCP), panchayats and etc. Then, I sub-divide the piece of land into freehold plots of 300-500 square meters. I sell plots to people. My target is Goans because I want them to build their own houses. Builders make flats for Rs 80-90 lakhs, which are out of reach of common man. My aim is to give affordable plots to people."
Twelve years ago, when Prathamesh started his real-estate journey at the tender age of 18, he was mostly into brokerage. But later, he diversified into development of plots. He rues the spiralling cost of real estate in the state, as he said, "The real estate market has been spoiled by people, who have lot of money. You see in a complex of 40-50 flats, only 10 flats are occupied and the remaining are not occupied. The prices are so high. I can't purchase a shop for Rs 1.5 crores in Santa Cruz, as it doesn't make any sense. My way of doing business is to keep my profits low."
Prathamesh's journey is different from others because he doesn't come from a family of real-estate developers. He said, "I hail from Santa Cruz. My parents were government employees. But, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make a brand name for myself. After I established my real-estate business, I thought of getting into events. So, I started a company called Prathamesh Events and Clothings."
Prathamesh continued, "I used to party a lot and then in 2014 I thought why I don't start my own events company. I started doing events with DJs. We do our events at Tito's, Mambos, Cape Town and SinQ." A self-acclaimed party lover, Prathamesh, opined that the state government shouldn't be cutting down on the number of electronic-dance-music (EDM) festivals. He said, "The party crowd is a lot better today in Goa than what it used to be earlier. Besides, we have so many talented DJs and other music professionals in Goa itself."
In 2016 neither Sunburn nor Supersonic happened in Goa much to the chagrin of the tourism industry. However, in 2017, Timeout-72 hours happened in the last week of December, which brought a lot of tourists in the state.
Prathamesh maintained that there are lot of talented people in music in the state and therefore events and parties are good business. He said, "There are so many bright DJs in Goa like Shania, Ketan and Armando. As of now, I am only putting money in my events business and not worrying too much about making profit."
Coming back to real-estate, Prathamesh thinks that although Real Estate Regulation and Development Act (RERA) is a good move, but there are still loopholes in it. He explained, "In UAE, under their law, a building has to be constructed within a specific time-frame. Their law says that the building has to be demolished if not constructed in the time promised. But, in India, RERA doesn't have such a provision."
When asked how he is dealing with the much spoken slowdown in the real estate sector, Prathamesh replied, "People in Goa have more than one source of income. You see people here don't sit idle. They do something apart from their job. The situation is not that bad. Post demonetisation, the instances of black money have come down in the sector."
Most of Prathamesh's real-estate business is in North Goa because the market is more dynamic here than in South Goa. The population and therefore the demand of North Goa is much higher than in South Goa.
But then, there is a perennial problem of unclear property titles in Goa, which is a huge hindrance for the industry. Prathamesh said, "The issue is we have Portuguese law in Goa and therefore scrutiny of papers is done differently. In my view, you need a lawyer with a lot of experience for scrutiny of property related papers."
Over the last 12 years Prathamesh has established himself in the real-estate sector. Leveraging upon his standing, he wants to diversify into other businesses. He said, "Two years ago, I started a clothing line in Dubai. I am into manufacturing of clothes, which I sell in Dubai itself. However, I want to launch a clothing line here in India with my name as its brand. People ask me that Prathamesh is a long name, but isn't that the case with Tommy Hilfiger too. I think I will launch clothing line under my name in a year's time."
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