Recently I happened to visit Lavasa with family for a one day outing. I had heard a lot about it through many sources, even few years ago I planned to buy a villa plot in lavasa. But some how that didnt work out. After visiting it recently, I feel cancelling that deal was a wise decision.
In this review, I have tried to capture all dimensions about lavasa like buying a property and staying there, or visiting like one day, or staying there as a tourist for 2-3 days etc.
Lets start with....
Location - absolutely stunning. This place is naturally blessed with beauty of the nature. Total hilly area, surrounded by couple of dams, lot of rains, total green surrounding. This place is quite near to Pune and you can reach in an hours time from Pune, Roads are OK not so great. Once you pass paud gaon, roads are good. From some point near to paud, road is developed and maintained by Lavasa corporation and road is really beautiful. One can enjoy the views while cruising.
Entire 5-6 KMs road before lavasa is total hill - ghat sort of road with extreme steep and many sharp turns. Need a skilled driver. Roads are narrow.
Entrance gate for lavasa is located at the topmost point of the hill and again you need to drive down 2-3 KMs to reach dasve villege and dam area. At the entrance, need to report and face security guards. Good for overall safety. Lavasa say, they allow only 100 tourist cars per day who are visiting for one day outing. Although I dont believe this.
Entry point is really beautiful, full of fog and clouds during rains. You feel like in heaven. Again road goes down with twists and turns towards dasve villege. Dasve is a place where major commercial development is planned and hotels are located. On this road, at many places, there are points constructed by lavasa where you can stop and enjoy the valley views around.
Once you reach at the bottom, you see a a dam Dasve Dam. And at the both banks of dam, residential, apartments, villas, hotels, clubs etc are developed.
Lavasa - One day outing
Overall great place to spend few hours here with family/friends. But, gets very expensive when you want to dine out. Whatever restaurant or cafe or food joint you choose, its way expensive and not worth the quality. Ample play area for kids, so they love it. Some water sports activity is also there, but sort of expensive too. Want to by water, little difficult, want to buy beer, I could see 2-3 beer shoppies easily in same vicinity. Strolling around the city from your car/bike is advisable and is a good experience. From outside all looks good and pretty attractive too. Also some road train sight seeing is also there but that covers very less area of lavasa.
During rainy days it will be a fun filled trip for sure. So I will say good place for one day outing. Prepared for spending more or carry your own food/drinks. Over the weekend, many restaurants provide services only to pre-booked guests. I had to return from restaurant called "Ekant" for the same reason. So try and book it prior your journey.
Now about 2-3 days stay in lavasa.
Good hotels to stay like Ekant, Fortune Select, Mercure etc. but somewhat on higher cost side. Cost is Some what ok for 2-3 days. But dining at these places may not be a great experience. If you are not participating in adventure or water sports then I feel except sight seeing and spa activities, there is nothing you can do much.
There are some tour operators who operate 2 days tourist packages from Mumbai to lavasa. But that is more suitable for prospective investors, not for you and me.
If you have extra money and dont want to travel much to spend your weekend, you can select Lavasa (pune residents) for weekend. Just relax in the rooms, eat whatever is served, stroll around in own vehicle but aimless. It can be a average experience, but still I wont recommend
Now third and last point of view.
Buying a property in Lavasa. if you read above two point of views then it is obvious that you may feel to buy a property, villa or apartment here. Thats the catch and superficial beauty of the place.
Buying a property is very easy if you have lot of money stinking in banks or any other modes white or black, whatever. keep few things in mind.....
Property in Lavasa can not be your primary property where you will stay day-to-day
Even if you buy, keep it as your weekend gateway for at the most 2 or 3 weekends throughout the year
Property prices are too high. When I was planning to buy a plot for villa, it was sooooo cheap but then the restriction of building a villa on the plot by their own architect, contractor that too in their said cost and timeline was very expensive package altogether
Good for NRIs to invest here and tell everyone "I HAVE VILLA IN LAVASA"
Now when you plan to buy a property you should consider following factors as well.....
Approach/access road - roads are very narrow and those are enough to handle the traffic scene, most of the tourist visitors though. But in the long term, roads are going to create bottle neck to access lavasa once the township is complete. And there is a very little scope that roads can be widened further as entire area is hills and mountains
Completion of City 4-5 years ago, when I was enquiring about buying a plot, they were saying completion of all phases will be by 2023. So if you have patience and money, invest, else forget it.
Construction Quality a big question mark. Whatever I saw and visited many under construction villas and apartments, simply pathetic quality, no other words. I guess the construction will last ponly till 2023. so no value for money. Return on investment might have been good if were booked 3-4 years ago when it really had cheap pricing, but now its way expensive and its going to be a very slow appreciating property. Dont expect double to cost in 5 years from this place.
Day to Day survival if you go and stay there from today or plan to stay there from next year, then be warned, facilities for your day-to-day needs are yet to come above the ground. They have Apollo Hospital and a store a bank, but except that nothing else. Secondly, by the time it will be ready for stay, traffic scene will be horrific there.
Buy only if you already own 4-5 properties, and have extra bucks and you dont mind risk those by investing in lavasa. I am not sure how much you can earn out of renting it to someone.
Commute no other mode of commuting except your own car/vehicle, they have their own vehicles but I guess they provide that to only future investors or buyers. for you and me its may be a paid service on their schedule, not as per your convenience. Yes, if you have a chopper then lavasa provides a helipad. So relax on the commute front
Controversies recently lavasa has gone through many issues with environmental approvals and blahblah. So work there was slow down and completion is may be delayed by an year or 2.
So all in all, it really a heaven but you can not stay in this heaven for more than 2-3 days.
Fun for kids as they really have innovative designed play park. Its scenic but only during rains. 6 months of the year it looks deserted. Every now & then there are glimpse of old villages across the lavasa & those areas are really shabby, disappointing. Am sure that wont be moved. Its still being constructed so workers, material trucks, bad roads is a common scene.
So I don’t say don’t visit, will recommend you to visit it to experience this heaven.