Mulls to buy property in India.

When Scarborough teachers Chitra and Raj Sunder decided to jump into a sizzling real estate market, they looked east to buy property in India.

They were among about 50 prospective buyers who showed up at an open house this week at the newly opened Mississauga office of Property Affaire, an India-based realty company that has detected an opportunity in the GTA’ large South Asian community-a group with dollars to invest and a lively aware to buy property in India burgeoning economy.

“We are looking at it from a purely investment perspective,” says Raj Sunder, 52, adding the couple has up to $200,000 to invest. “Investing in North American property is not that lucrative. We’ve been hearing a lot of good things about India and think that will generate a better rate of return. We prefer to buy a property in India (Chennai), where we are from, but we are buy property in India.

Adds Chitra, 45: “Yes, the affinity is there, we want to invest in our mother country (INDIA). But still, money is money. I’M a math teacher and I would like to have some numbers on what is the bottom line in terms of return on our investment in five years before use buy property in India. So we can know what we’re getting and make comparisons,”

India’s property boom took off in 2005, with prices rising as much as 40 percent in some cities. Last year, prices soared by 60 to 70 percent. In some overheated markets-Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and cities such as Chandigarh, Noida, Gurgown and Ghaziabad in the National Capital Region around New Delhi – the value of high-end properties doubled and that is why more and more NRIs & Non-NRIs like to buy property in India.

The boom theme’ buy property in India’ is now spreading to smaller cities such as Pune, Jaipur, Agra and Ahmedabad. The value of the Indian realty sector will multiply 7.5 times by 2015, according to Merrill Lynch, though it has suffered a slight correction this year that sparked warnings the bubble may soon burst.