The Srivathsans, residing in California, will soon move into a bigger home, thanks to their ancestral property at Mandaveli in Chennai.

“I never imagined my dream house would be up for grabs at a throwaway price,” said Mr Sankar Srivathsan, who will soon move from a leased condominium to an independent house of his own at Santa Clara.

“This was possible only because of the booming real estate market in Chennai that fetched me a good price for my grandfather’s 20-year-old house in Mandaveli,” he said.

Like him, many NRIs from Chennai, settled in the US and UK, are looking to encash the opportunity of the booming real estate market in the city.

“Recession-hit US and Eurozone have put their prime properties up for sale at ridiculously lower quotes. Hence, to raise funds for such a transaction in their places of residence, many NRIs are selling their local properties,” says Mr S. Arun Kumar, vice-president, Hanu Reddy Realty.

The US-based real estate brokerage firm has seen an upsurge in demand from NRIs keen to sell their properties in India, especially Tamil Nadu, to get more funds.

“We are getting calls from about 9-10 people a month who want to dispose their properties in Chennai,” he said.

The firm recently closed a big-ticket deal valued at Rs 30 crore for a property in Adyar for one of its clients.

Said Ms Kalpana Murthy of global realty consultants Cushman & Weikfield, “We are seeing this selling trend among NRIs for the last one to one-and-a-half years, especially from those residing in the US and UK.”

However, Indians living in Singapore and Malaysia are still active buyers in Chennai, said she. “The sell-to-buy ratio among NRIs is in the range of 20:80,” she added.