According to Anarock, home sales rose 87 percent between January and September in seven cities to 2,72,709 units and breached transactions recorded in the entire 2019 year before COVID-19.
Sales stood at 1,45,651 units in the January-September 2021 period.
Real estate consultant Anarock, which is one of the leading home brokerage firms, tracks primary sales in seven major cities: Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune.
According to the data, home sales in these seven cities rose to 2,72,709 units during January-September this year from 1,45,651 units in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The January-September figure for this calendar year is higher than the 2,61,358 units sold throughout 2019.
Sales fell to 1,38,344 units in 2020 due to the adverse impact of the COVID-19-induced lockdowns.
India’s primary housing market revived last year on pent-up demand coupled with incentives offered by some state governments such as Maharashtra in the form of lower stamp duty.
As a result, sales increased to 2,36,516 units in 2021 and the momentum has continued so far this year.
The impact of rising interest rates on home loans — from a 10-year low of around 6.5 percent to more than 8 percent now — has not been felt so far in the real estate market. The RBI has increased the repo rate by 190 basis points since May this year to contain inflation.
Housing prices have also increased by at least 10 percent in the past year.
Experts believe that the pandemic has positively affected the concept of home ownership, which along with an improved affordability index, is driving sales.
According to Anarock data, residential property sales in Delhi-NCR more than doubled to 49,138 units between January and September from 22,478 units in the year-ago period.
In the MMR, sales rose 67 percent to 81,315 units from 48,716 units.
Bangalore saw an 81% increase in home sales to 37,645 units from 20,780 units, while Pune witnessed a 69% increase to 40,598 units from 24,043 units.
Home sales in Hyderabad doubled to 35,980 units from 14,376 units. In Chennai, home sales rose 57 percent to 12,290 units from 7,843 units.
Home sales in Kolkata in the first nine months of this year more than doubled to 15,743 units from 7,415 units.
Anarock said its housing sales data includes all residential projects (apartments, villas, townhouses, villas and detached flats), excluding plot development projects.
“Momentum in both home sales and new launches remained strong across the top 7 cities in 3Q 2022 (July-September) despite major headwinds. Home ownership appetite has remained imperfect, with peak sales driven by end users,” said Anarock’s president. said Anuj Puri.
Expect the trend to continue during the ongoing festive season.
To maintain the sales momentum during the festive season, Puri said real estate developers have launched lucrative offers and they are being received well in the market.
Builders offer cash discounts and freebies.
Some of the players also partly charge interest on home loans, GST and stamp duty to boost sales during the festive fourth quarter, considered the strongest of the calendar year.
