Housing.com launches price index for residential properties with ISB

Housing.com and ISB launched an index to track prices of residential properties across eight major cities as part of their effort to provide real-time data to all stakeholders

Real estate portal Housing.com and Indian School of Business (ISB) on Monday launched an index to track prices of residential properties across eight major cities as part of their effort to provide real-time data to all stakeholders.

The Housing Pricing Index (HPI) of Housing.com-ISB was launched by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra through a virtual event.

He said the index will be useful for homebuyers as well as policymakers to decide the future course of action.

Mishra said the housing prices index was required for the society and will help in nation making.

He informed that National Housing Bank (NHB) also releases its housing prices index.

Mishra asked Housing.com and ISB to make this index robust.

Housing.com said the index, which has been created in association with the ISB's Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE), will be an indicator of economic activity in real estate.

The HPI will provide monthly reports on price and quantity (units sold) movement. It could help a potential homebuyer assess the appropriate time to buy a property and at the same time assist sellers in knowing the most opportune moment to sell their assets.

Policymakers and financial analysts can also use it as a reliable estimate to keep track of the trends in the sector.

Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune are the eight cities which will be covered. Housing.com's sister concern PropTiger is already providing quarterly data for demand, supply, prices and unsold inventories in the residential segment.

Buyers as well as policymakers are mostly forced to rely on market anecdotes and guesswork about property price movements in Indian cities in the absence of quality high-frequency data, especially locality specific data. The entire idea behind the launch of the Housing HPI is to address this issue," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, Housing.com, Makaan.com and PropTiger.com.

Aside from benefitting buyers, investors and policymakers, he said the data will also be immensely valuable for real estate developers who are considering a new locality to launch new developments.

"This indeed is a step in the right direction, and we are sure HPI will go a long way in equipping various stakeholders to make informed choices and, in the process, add more value and worth to their assets," said Rajendra Srivastava, Dean ISB.

Naredco President Niranjan Hiranandani said, "Introducing the data index for real estate, one of the vital economic growth anchors, is a leap forward."

The prime objective to launch the index is to bring transparency and narrow down the trust deficit between all the concerned industry stakeholders, he said.

"It will address the challenge of the paucity of well-defined data and foster companies with the right business intelligence, market insights, trends, and sentiments to sign off well-informed decisions. This new-age methodology will promote Indian Real Estate at par with global best practices," Hiranandani said.

Prof Deepa Mani, ISB, said the indices like the HPI would be especially relevant to industry and policy makers in the face of current systematic and pervasive disruptions in the economy, notably, the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sharad Mittal, Executive Director and CEO of Motilal Oswal Real Estate, said the housing segment, which is 70 per cent of Indian real estate, needed such an index.

He said the housing sector has been affected in the last few years due to trust deficit and liquidity crunch.