chennai despite the hype sriperumbudur has received as a manufacturing hub over the last seven years real estate appreciation in the region has been among the lowest in chennais outlying areas developers who have promoted residential projects there are not enthused about launching new ones the experience of prince foundations which promoted the first major residential apartment project in sriperumbudur a 440flat complex in 2007 at 2300 per sqft speaks volumes we completed the project in 2010 but have not been able to move out yet because we still have 30 unsold units said ashwin kamdar md the last apartment the group sold was two months ago at 3000 per sq ft with just 30 appreciation in seven years we dont even recover the interest on investment said kamdar the plight of owners trying to resell their apartments is worse because they suffer a 2 per annum depreciation on the current market price for instance they have to sell a fouryearold apartment at 8 less than the price of a new apartment almost all major residential projects have huge unsold stock some realtors say the real estate market here never took off owing to a mismatch between land price and selling price of apartments but not everybody is worrying tvh marketing director w mathews said low appreciation was the hallmark of any enduser market catering to the affordable housing segment sriperumbudur fired the imagination of realtors after bangalorebased velankanni group bought anubhav foundations 161acre farm at sunguvarchatram 4 km from sriperumbudur for 60 crore in a court auction said real estate consultant k sathyanarayanan when the property which most realtors valued at hardly 67 lakh per acre went for 37 lakh per acre in 2006 eyeballs popped out since then land value surged almost 45 times and major real estate firms picked up large swathes of land he said now most of them are keen on selling their land as none of the promises including greenfield airport and rail link made by the government have been kept