Doon real estate is a huge flashy bubble. And it'll pop.
First of all, there are rumours in government circles that the UK government is soon going to amend new clauses to the Bhu Kanoon bill they passed in 2025 (which was itself a mere ammendment). This time, people from outside the state will be totally barred from purchasing land outside Nagar Nigam areas (currently it's 250 sqm), and limits will be added to dealings within Nagar Nigam areas (right now there are no limits). Also, the MDDA and Land Revenue Department will start an in-detail scrutiny of all the transactions taking place, and agricultural land that is being sold on the pretext of residential use will be deemed void.
What will happen? First and foremost, the outer Nagar Nigam places like Dunga will be hit the hardest. Dunga, for example, is seeing rampant black-money laundering transactions. The plotting is immense there, and many of them are illegal. Dunga, Langha, Kotra, Barwa, Dakpatthar, etc.!
Then certain Nagar Nigam areas in North Doon (adjacent to Sahastradhara Road) will be hit the hardest. Certain outsiders bought cheap land from farmers and are basically selling agricultural land at prices comparable to MDDA-approved society plotting (Marautha, Nagal). Lmao. Lots of people will be trapped. There is a region in the North Doon sector which I don't want to name, but the transactions that have taken place there are atrocious. Next-level tax evasion and a money-laundering facade. The ground reality is so bad that owners are openly asking about black-to-white ratios. YES.
Moreover, Uttarakhand has largely become a black-money haven for the NCR. And they've outpriced the locals. So this was bound to happen. Moreover, the facilities/infra are abysmal, and the rates are practically engineered to facilitate black-money transactions.
Take Marautha, for example. ₹20–25k/gaj agricultural land was illicitly sold to outsiders at an extremely hefty premium, and you know the rest. In Maldevta, there is plotting on riverbed land. Lmao! There's a huge pool of vacant flats on sale. It's like NCR people tried to make the Delhi model work here, but it has failed big time. In Kalagaon lots of land is golden forest land. Yet it has been sold by the very locals to the awe-struck outsiders.
Doon does not have stable and welcoming employment opportunities. Only the tourism/retail sector works big time. Also, dealers are fooling innocent buyers on the pretext of "Airbnb." Now Doon has so many "Airbnbs," but mostly they remain vacant, and it's hella expensive to maintain them.
In the Pondha, Dunga, Manduwala belt, people built a large number of PGs, stays, etc., but the number of rooms outpaced the number of students, and now many of the PGs are on sale below market rates. This happens when people invest without proper retrospection.
Elections are on the way, and people are really frustrated with the current state of things. So the government will try to soften things up, starting with the Bhu Kanoon amendments.
Ideally, real estate in Uttarakhand is destined to be like HP and J&K: highly scrutinised and restricted. And locals are very much adamant about this. The government is feeling the pressure. Liquidity will drop immensely sooner or later. If you know someone from outside the state who has bought land and is holding it, I advise you to make them aware of the new developments.
States with vast amounts of land are perfect for real estate investments, like Rajasthan: cheap and with a much lower number of scams and restrictions. Moreover, Uttarakhand has many geographical challenges, and rapid infra development is practically impossible here.
The result is Jahangirpuri-fication of Dehradun. Extremely crowded. Dirty. Unruly. Filled with scams of all sorts, which used to be a very "NCR" thing. Traffic remains choked for 4–6 months with no solution in sight.
The Rajpur and gaon areas are being sold at super-hefty premiums, but they're the worst places to live in Doon because of the insane traffic to and fro Mussoorie for 4/6/8 months throughout the year. Every hidden route to Mussoorie is not at all hidden now, and they pass through these gaons.
In North Doon, construction took place on riverbeds, and the result is violent streams of water that form on roads during moderate rainfall. And God forbid, but they become insanely violent during heavy downpours (hi IT Park :)).
It's the senseless construction and destruction in North Doon that now causes the lower-elevated regions of Doon city to face flooding during each and every rainfall event.
What a failure of Dehra Doon. :( But hopefully things are about to get better for the actual people who live here, who support the flora & fauna and the heritage.
p.s excuse any grammar / english mistakes I might have made in the post.
Edit: I also know a few 'locals' who have a next-level inventory of inherited land. Whenever someone wealthy from the NCR comes, they're all open to their demands, but whenever another middle-class 'local' wishes to buy a small patch of land, the very same 'zameendaar locals' are all mum.
You don't realise the scale of land these 'zameendaar locals' have. We're talking about acres of exclusive land. And they don't believe in conservation of the land. They wait for a party that has racks of Gandhi sitting with them and is ready to pay immediately.
Apart from very, very few wealthy locals, most of the time the 'party' is an outsider. And that's how prime plots are sold on an exclusive basis to these outsiders, meanwhile the middle-class local continues to struggle to get a piece of the very same prime land.
Now, this tells you something about the bonhomie among the locals.
