What We Offer
Realty and Property Management
Nature’s Wilderness Trails
ESG and Sustainability Advisory
Realty and Property Management
EcoBlu Realty is premised on the comprehensive regulatory changes by the recently-established Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) in all the states to organise the real estate sector and transform the ecosystem of developers, brokers, owners, buyers, realtors, investors, and various service providers. The provisions empower state authorities and municipalities to enforce landuse plans, regulate developers, mandate digital transactions, enable innovative market instruments through REITs, PPPs, etc, and encourage sustainable business models whilst preserving the ecological values.
Although most of the real estate sector in India is in the residential, commercial and industrial segment in urban metros, we see future growth in Tier 2 and 3 cities, crossover towns, and settlements around scenic mountains, retirement communities and temple towns, as well-heeled techies and self-owned businesses seek to move out of metros to the quieter environs with better quality of life, especially in the post-covid scenario. We also see development policies focus more on domestic growth to improve the quality of life in the vast Indian hinterland, where cost of living is more affordable given that on-line services, off-grid technologies, roads and most social services have penetrated most towns.
In carefully reviewing realty sectors, commercials and transaction volumes, EcoBlu has targeted the niche segments of ecotourism sites, small farms, approved sites, pre-owned villas and lands that can be leased from local government. With our base in Goa and RERA registration, our realty focus is in the Western Ghats located in the crossover towns along Goa-Karnataka-Maharashtra borders. Likewise, our Mangalore presence targets niche properties in the scenic Shringeri-Shimoga belt. The ghat areas outside the fringes of reserve forests also offer the best potential for EcoBlu Reality to feed land banks to our social venture of developing Nature’s Wilderness Trail (NWT) properties. The difference we would like to make to the reality sector and our strategy is articulate in the figure.
Our approach is to correct the trust deficit in the realty sector. We shall verify properties, papers, ownership and ensure that the sellers and owners have realistic price expectations to conduct fair and transparent transactions. Unlike most dealers who go with adertisements posted on property website, we shall develop technical and commercial packages on the property based on proper representations with owners and buyers. Our dealership arrangements result in faster transactions as the papers are checked, visits are conducted, negotiations are concluded, and sale deed is swiftly registered – moreover, since we have architectural, engineering and contracting capabilities, we can conduct property remodeling, renting and caretaking, especially when the buyers are out-of-state.
So, are you an absentee property owner? – no worries, we are aware of the issues faced by non-resident house owners such as maintenance, cleaning, bills, etc. Whether it is an independent house, flat or small land holding, we will discuss the scope of engagement with you and attend or manage your property’s basic upkeep needs on a contractual basis. In addition, we will also follow up on the status of your property/documents with authorities as required as we note that several people living abroad may find it difficult to follow up on the status of the property papers. Further if you wish to engage or provide your residence for potential home stay customers visiting Goa, we can assist and facilitate this as well as part of our contractual agreement.
Contact us for your buying/selling/rental/services requirements : info@ebvs.in or +91 9420553558
Nature’s Wilderness Trail
For well-placed urban/town residents, the Farm House (FH) or something similar in a chilled-out place close to nature has always been an aspirational lifestyle. This has strong emotional connect and is an established market segment. With more families and friends wanting to travel and conduct get-togethers and events in off-beat places, FH are becoming commercial ventures.
Earlier FH models: typically tend to be of high level of investment, commitment & hassles. Earlier plans for a farmhouse with fruiting plants, flower beds, and trees was the aspiration of an ideal vacation home. Based on that description, we developed the concept, which is great, but it looks so out of place after 3 years, as we have learned that the farm house itself costs about Rs. 1+ CR. Developing the farm itself is about 0.5 CR/acre, making this more expensive than the apartment in the city where >50% of the time would be spent.
In addition, the farmhouse has the usual hassles of employing people, keeping accounts, farming machinery, applying fertilizers, pesticides, etc., plus making sure that the labourers harvest and sell the produce without pilfering and the challenge of breaking even on costs. Therefore, the Farm-House dream has lived its course and tends to be a White Elephant with long commitments. Farmhouse is not very transactional as kids may not take care, and buyers don’t appreciate the effort into it. Moreover, it does not celebrate nature’s biodiversity, especially the Western Ghats that are replete with local teak, sal, kokum, jamun and bamboo forests. These conserve soil, groundwater and grow into considerable biomass sequestering carbon and are high-yield O2 parks – that are more aligned to the wellness genre.
Our Wilderness Park Venture: Environmentally responsible property with wilderness appeal – Given the hassles with FH property, a new development typology of our NWT with a nursery with native species from a local forest to develop a reasonably dense fringe forest started to evolve to conserve biodiversity, maintain natural cycles and allows self-sustaining trees/vegetation. It cuts out the need to constantly farm, irrigate, harvest and sell, while restoring the soil fertility. Unlike a luxury FH, the NWT is a rustic eco-property with a traditional village home and nursery from which expanding circles of 10m forest saplings will be planted/nurtured over time – an example is our Ramnagar Farm site, where we have embankments planned to capture water during rains. In between the native trees, local varieties of wild fruits and creepers from the local forest that are known to grow in the soil and acclimated to the climate, will be grown. At the back of the farm, some camping areas for enjoyment can be put up.
Contact us for more information for NWT projects or have a read of our papers on ESG and social ventures here (link to the 3 papers)
For more information on NWT – please refer to our info-brochure here (link to NWT brochure)
Environment Social Governance (ESG) and Sustainability Advisory
Strong corporate performance in Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) mean high sustainability rankings which in turn support high market capitalization and valuations. Therefore, investors watch ESG KPIs more closely than GRI KPIs, as ESG focusses more on shareholder’s concerns. ESG-driven funding is growing exponentially forcing companies to do well on ESG aspects in order to reflect strong values of culture, behaviour, branding, intellectual capital, and leadership.
The fund managers embed ESG in their investment strategy and conduct periodic adjustments based on ESG scores which sets the tone for large institutional investors to commit their funds. The capital markets have coalesced around ESG-investing and companies are innovating their businesses, minimizing wastage, and have assimilated new opportunities that have come out of ESG framework.
However, as shown in the figure, there are gaps particularly in reporting, rating, auditing, consistency and overall alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), GRI Sustainability Reporting and Indian Statutory Disclosure Requirements.
Whilst the ESG ecosystem is collectively working to fix these issues, EcoBlu has summarized key observations in the following papers along with solutions for the Indian market:
Our ‘Screen Model’ works off the common database of statutory disclosures to develop both GRI Sustainability and ESG reports, thus minimizing the onus of reporting. Then we apply the ‘Pivot Model’ to harness key areas of ESG/Sustainability to diversify the company’s activities in specific social sectors/markets pursuant to contracting and concession models with the central/state government. Therefore, our ‘Screen & Pivot’ models described in Paper #1 enable low-cost ESG reporting and monetize ESG opportunities based on ‘do-no-harm’ principle in a desi-jugaad manner.
Furthermore, to enable C-Suite interact consistently on non-financial reporting, we have streamlined the methodology of comparing ‘ESG versus GRI’ KPIs in Paper #2 so that Investor Relations can efficiently engage with external stakeholders. Using the ‘Screen & Pivot’ model for GRI and ESG, we develop the case for diversification efforts and enable interesting storylines on sustainability.