Residential realty records resounding recovery

Sales of residential units are estimated to grow 51 per cent across seven major cities during October-December as compared with the previous quarter. JLL India CEO and Country Head Ramesh Nair informed that housing sales are estimated to rise at 21,832 units during October-December quarter as against 14,415 units in July-September. The fourth quarter has witnessed 51 per cent improvement in residential sales, with recovery evenly spread among all the seven cities. The housing market is set to chart out a new chapter of growth in 2021, fuelled by affordability, reinforced the desire to own a house and renewed interest from certain buyer segments such as NRIs. Delhi NCR and Mumbai recorded strong sequential growth. While Mumbai accounted for 23% of the overall sales, Delhi NCR market cornered 20%. In October-December Mumbai housing sales grew 22% to 5,026 units from 4,135 units in the previous quarter. Similarly, Delhi NCR also witnessed good demand as sales in Q 4 increased by 43% to 4,440 units from 3,112 units in Q 3.

According to the JLL India data, housing sales in 2020 could drop 48 per cent to 74,451 units from 143,923 units from the previous year as demand slumped across cities due to pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. In Bengaluru, sales fell to 10,440 units in 2020 from 26,453 units last year. Housing sales in Chennai declined to 6,983 units from 13,967 units, while in Delhi-NCR demand dipped to 15,743 units from 29,010 units. In Hyderabad, sales declined to 9,926 units from 16,025 units. Kolkata witnessed sharp fall in demand to 2,568 units from 7,463 units and in Maharashtra, Mumbai saw housing sales of 19,545 units in 2020 as against 32,138 units last year while demand in Pune went down to 9,246 units from 18,867 units. 'GDP in the July-September quarter of 2020 showed higher than expected recovery. During the same quarter, the housing market showed some initial signs of recovery as well, with sales increasing by 34 per cent on a sequential basis. In the backdrop of issues like job loss and fall in income levels, this uptick in sales is a significant achievement.