New Delhi: The sprawling farmhouses in and around the National Capital are once again beckoning businessmen and executives looking for open spaces, tired of being confined to their high-rise penthouses during the lockdown.

About two dozen transactions for such properties were closed in the past two months, compared with an average two to three deals a month before the Covid-19 outbreak, according to brokers in New Delhi.

About 500 farmhouses are on sale — ranging from Rs 10 crore to Rs 150 crore — in areas such as Westend Greens, Sultanpur, Pushpanjali, Vasant Kunj, DLF Chhattarpur, Radhey Mohan Drive and Ansal Satbari, brokers and experts said.

According to Pradeep Prajapati, founder of WealthVisory Capital, about half of these were put up for sale over the past two to three months. “There are some distress sales as well, but prices are still holding up,” he said.Brokers expect prices to increase as supply is limited.77969187Encouraged by growth in demand, the Raheja group has decided to develop a gated colony of farmhouses on 25 acres in Gurgaon.

“We have been receiving a lot of queries for farmhouses. We have over 110 acres in Gurgaon and are now coming up with farmhouses of 1-2.5 acres. This will be a gated colony of farmhouses, which will be self-sufficient,” said Nayan Raheja. India Sotheby’s International Realty chief executive Amit Goyal said, “A certain section of the UHNI (ultra-high net worth individuals) community has always had second homes (like a farmhouse) but now the demand has seen a steady rise over the past few months.

We have seen the trend of people moving out of premium gated societies to farmhouses,” said Rohit Chopra, founder of Southdelhiprime.com, a boutique real estate consultancy firm.Part of the trend can be attributed to increased inventory, with owners under financial stress due to the pandemic-led economic slump. In satellite towns further from the Capital, there is an abundance of farmhouses and farmland available, but due to the lack of credible developers, HNIs prefer to invest in Delhi.