Top 8 markets October-December Residential Sales Up 32% on Year

Residential sales has seen an uptrend across top 8 tier 1 cities by 32% from previous year to 66,879 residences during the December quarter, according to the data from Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research. There is a 3% rise in a series on the quarter in sales across 8 major real estate markets, including Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, National Capital Region, and Mumbai Metropolitan Region. However, the on-year hike may feel accentuated as base October-December quarter was marked with uncharacteristically low sales and demonetization.

When it comes to sales numbers, the market seems to be growing, mostly in NCR, MMR, Hyderabad and Pune. But the cities like Chennai and Bangalore are still in sluggish sales regime especially due to the fact that they pick up later, according to Pankaj Kapoor, MD, Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research. All tier-1 cities have been recovered in real estate sales during December, except Chennai. Maximum recovery was 69% and 53% of growth in sales in Hyderabad and Kolkata respectively on-year basis. But they still have only 11% of contribution in overall tier-1 market.

In MMR and NCR markets, the most significant growth in large number was seen to be 42% and 30% respectively. These two markets contributed 49% of total sales in quarter in combination in tier 1 market. However, pricing is still under pressure in most of the major markets. Across tier-1 cities, the weighted average witnessed marginal rise of 1%. In 5 of 8 cities, marginally, price was declined from 1% to 3%. There is no change in price in Bangalore and MMR and Ahmadabad have slight rise.

Prices haven’t gone up over the past three years and it amounts to over 25% correction which helped bridge the gap between prices and affordability, according to Kapoor. During the quarter, around 54% of sales were combined by sub-50 lakh range after Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 1 Cr. segment and there is 29% of contribution in total sales. In less than Rs. 25 lakh category, there is huge jump in sales on-year basis with 67% and up.