Millennium Housing to expand; sells over 130 units within a year

By Sandun A. Jayasekera

Forging ahead as the market leader in the Housing sector, Millennium Housing Ltd (MHL) now expands into more projects in the suburbs with a land that has been conveniently located on the Maharagama – Piliyandala Road. The location offers 40 houses with well developed infrastructure facilities and is the first of medium sized projects to be launched shortly by MHL.

MHL is the pioneer of Sri Lanka’s first ever private sector mega housing and township project – Millennium City Athurugiriya and Ja-Ela. With experience in building and selling over 2500 houses that cater to the middle and upper middle income society groups, MHL ventures out to the suburbs with smaller projects to meet the rising demand of the house buying market. Construction expertise, cost effective methods in managing construction and maintaining high quality standards and good customer relations, have been the key elements of  success of MHL.

“We have come from humble beginning, when only a few companies got involved in building houses since the complexities involved and our high density project Athurugiriya has been a blessing in disguise. Due to huge success we had in the Athurugiriya project, another mega township project was launched in Ja-Ela, Ekala, and this project has also been an instant success. At Millennium City we offer not only just a house, but the experience of living in a resort: a safe, secured neighbourhood with all modern facilities,” a MHL spokesman said.

He added that the financial year ending 31 March 2012, the company performed exceptionally well in sales and sold more than 130 housing units ranging from Rs. 2.8 million to Rs. 19 million. He added the model that can explain the housing market is ‘buying vs. building’. The buying market expands due to complexities involved when building houses. Cost fluctuations of building materials, issues in labour contract management, loss prevention, storage issues, neighbourhood issues, problems and delays associated with approval processes from local authorities, infrastructure facilities and once the construction is over, no guarantees or warranties for the building.

The demand for buying houses also related to the interest rates offered by the banks for the housing loans. The affordability criteria are determined by the rate. Millennium City Projects offer a wider selection of the houses ranging from as low as Rs. 3.3 million to Rs. 19.5 million, to enable a large cross section of the market to make the decision. According to a company spokesman, MHDL facilitates housing loans through banks and financial institutions. With the initial down payment, after the loan is approved, funds are released from the banks and the house handed over to the customer. Even those who are on rent can buy their own brand new house and pay the bank loan instalments and own a house.

The spokesman added that there is a very high percentage of buyers from the expat Sri Lankan community working overseas. For them a down payment can obtain a housing loan from a bank of their choice. MHDL facilitates the loan process without any fee for the convenience of buyers.

“We see a growing trend in purchases from Sri Lankan community who has moved out during the war to first world countries especially for our top of the range Villas in Ja-ela. These Villas are crafted to the similar specification of the Villas, one could find in Western countries,” he said, adding that MHL will soon launch a few value added land sales projects catering to those who wants to invest in lands as future investments. The home plots that would be on offer would consist of all the infrastructure facilities to make them value added plots.