Prime Choice

Buyer interest in luxury residences has been, by and large, subdued, yet a new breed of HNIs is indulging in some big-ticket buys at coveted locations

- Anshul Dhamija

In 2004, Sachiin Joshi, son of JM Joshi, founder of the Pune-based JMJ Group, received an invite to a party at Kingfisher Villa, in Candolim, Goa, which was then owned by flamboyant industrialist Vijay Mallya.

The sprawling, Goan-styled, 35,000-plus-sq-ft villa that sits on three acres, with direct access to the beach, was where the former promoter of Kingfisher Airlines threw his most lavish parties up until December 2015.

That month, Mallya is known to have hosted his biggest and most expensive house party, costing over $2 million, to ring in his 60th birthday, even as Indian public sector banks started tightening the noose around him. Barely two months later, he left for London, not to return.

“For a moment, I felt I wasn’t in India,” says Joshi, 33, recalling his first visit to the place. “It was magnanimous. It has a road frontage and a beach frontage; few properties in Goa have that. It’s one of those rare properties that you get to see in your lifetime.”