Calcutta, April 8: Yesterday’s landmark property deal for a commercial plot on the EM Bypass is set to nudge up real estate rates across the city, lifting prices of even residential properties across the board.

Although no one anticipates an overnight increase in price, real estate pundits predict that land will come dearer.

As a consequence, realty prices, both residential and commercial, will go up.

Yesterday, Emaar-MGF, a Delhi-Dubai real estate joint venture company, paid Rs 56 lakh a cottah for over six acres on the EM Bypass.

While it bought the plot for building a hotel ? the return from a business venture is different from a residential project ? those in the real estate circuit feel sellers will ask for higher prices for land within the city for residential projects as well.

At present, land rates are highest in Alipore and the Ballygunge Circular Road area, followed by the locality adjacent to Dhakuria lake.

Till now, no transaction for residential plots has crossed Rs 50 lakh a cottah.

Piyush Bhagat, who developed the Silver Spring housing project, adjacent to the plot that sold yesterday, said the development would have a spill-over effect across the city.

“Everyone who has land will ask for 40-50 per cent more than the current rate. As a result, residential rates are bound to shoot up in the city as well,” he said.

Bhagat paid Rs 5 lakh a cottah four years ago for the land on which the Silver Spring complex now stands.

Resale rates are likely to go up as well. Bhagat claimed to have received calls from Silver Spring buyers today seeking advice on fair prices for their apartments.

Estimates show that a buyer has to shell out around Rs 5,500 for each sq ft if he has to purchase land at Rs 50 lakh a cottah. Today, only a handful of projects fetch such prices in Calcutta.

Pawan Agarwal of NK Realtors, a leading city-based real estate marketing agent, feels that there might not be too many takers at such high prices.

“The Emaar-MGF venture has bet on the future potential of the economy of the city and the state. High rates could be sustained only if IT and manufacturing industries do well here,” Agarwal said.

“People might ask fancy rates but there may not be buyers. One cannot compare the scenario in Delhi and Mumbai with Calcutta,” he added.

Abhijit Das of Trammel Crow Meghraj also felt that land prices would go up.

“We have to see if sustained transactions are taking place here at such rates,” he said.

At the end of the day, industry sources said, the entry of deep-pocket national and international players could see local developers and middle-class customers edged out of the city proper.