Realtors, investors' sentiment towards home sales rises in Q1

According to Real Estate Sentiment Index, 41% of respondents believe home sales to go up in six months as compared to 15% in Q1 of 2015

After a lull of five quarters, the sentiment of developers and investors, towards residential sales has improved sharply, says a new study.

According to Real Estate Sentiment Index for January - March 2016 by Knight Frank and Ficci, 54 per cent of respondents, including developers, PEs, banks and NBFCs, believe home sales to go up in six months as compared to 15 per cent respondents in Q1 of 2015.

According to the Index, 41 per cent believed that home prices will go up in the next months, which was highest percentage of respondents in the last five quarters. However, 47 per cent said it will remain the same.

About 46 per cent of respondents said the residential project launches to improve in the next six months.

"After a lull of five quarters, the overall sentiment has experienced a sharp uptick at the back of the Union Budget's focus on real estate and infrastructure. Additionally, the Real Estate Regulation Bill becoming an Act has boosted the sentiment further since the sector is expected to become much more transparent and organised which in turn will benefit all the stakeholders," said Samantak Das, chief economist at Knight Frank.

Nearly 73 per cent of the respondents expect the office leasing volume to improve in the coming six months and 72 per cent believed office rents to go up in the six months.

"The stakeholders have been optimistic about the office market for quite some time now and the same trend has been reflected in this survey as well. Residential sector, on the other hand, has restored positive sentiment amongst the developers and lenders for the first time after four quarters," Das said.