Housing sales up in 2018 in 9 major cities, but new supply falls 22%; Here's why

Increased demand for flats that are ready to move in or nearing completion helped housing sales to rise by 7 per cent during 2018 to nearly 2.15 lakh units across nine major cities, according to data analytic firm PropEquity. New launches fell by 22 per cent to 1.46 lakh units during 2018 against 1.87 lakh units in the previous year. Higher sales and fall in new supply led to 10 per cent decline in unsold stock at around 6 lakh units as on December 31, 2018.

The nine cities tracked by PropEquity are Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thane and Chennai. "In 2018, we witnessed over 20 per cent fall in new launches in top nine Indian cities as developers across cities focussed on executing and aggressively selling previously launched projects. This also led to unsold inventory falling by over 10 per cent; and effectively these top nine cities sold 7.2 per cent more units in 2018 versus 2017 even with fewer launched projects," said Samir Jasuja, Founder and MD, PropEquity.

The realty sector is currently on the upswing, primarily for ready-to-move housing units or the projects that are nearing competition due to low-risk factors attached to them, he added. "2019 is going to be a watershed moment for the Indian real estate sector. We are witnessing solid demand for ready-to-move and nearing completion projects, which primarily cater to end-users," Jasuja said.

According to the data, Bengaluru saw 19 per rise in sales to 38,525 units during 2018, while sales in Chennai grew by 40 per cent to 14,920 units.

Housing sales in Mumbai went up by 9 per cent at 22,413 units, 16 per cent in Pune at 49,706 units and 14 per cent in Kolkata at 14,166 units. However, Gurugram saw a dip in sales by 16 per cent at 9,425 units, while sales in Hyderabad declined by 17 per cent at 15,486 units.

Housing sales in Noida fell by 5 per cent to 3,828 units, while absorption in Thane dipped by 2 per cent to 46,347 units. Among other property consultants, Knight Frank has reported lowest rise in housing sales during 2018 at 6 per cent.

JLL India said housing sales rose 47 per cent in seven cities, ANAROCK data suggested 16 per cent rise in seven cities, and PropTiger showed 25 per cent rise in sales in nine big cities. The difference in the figures is on account of variation in locations in the respective reports.

P.E. Analytics owns and operates PropEquity, which is an online subscription based real estate data and analytics platform covering over 98,370 projects of 26,881 developers across over 42 cities in India.