Realty poor-show hints at slide

Unitech sales drop 45%, DLF’s 20%.

Unitech, India’s second-largest real estate company, sold around 45 per cent less area in 2010-11 at 9.16 million sq ft, compared with 16.6 million sq ft in the previous year. It launched 10.44 million sq ft, against 26.2 million sq ft in 2009-10, a comparison of Unitech’s operations update for these years show. Company officials were not available for comment.

The value of sales booked by Unitech was pegged at Rs 4,323 crore, 38.5 per cent lower than the previous year’s figure of Rs 7,033 crore.

The past several months, especially the period after Diwali, had been rather bad for the real estate sector, said Kaustuv Roy, executive director at realty consultancy company Cushman & Wakefield.

According to Roy, sales were subdued due to a combination of reasons like rise in prices of residential apartments, hardening of interest rates on housing loans by 150 to 200 basis points in a short period, and investors and end users’ decision to hold back buying in anticipation of a correction in prices. The 2G spectrum scam spilling over to the real estate sector may not have contributed significantly to the fall in sales, Roy said.

India’s largest real estate company, DLF’s, sales too slipped, too, but not as much as Unitech’s. DLF sold 10 million sq ft in 2010-11, against 12.55 million sq ft in the previous year, a decline of 20.3 per cent. In terms of value, sales dropped seven per cent to Rs 6,658 crore from Rs 7,150 crore in 2009-10.

Anshuman Magazine, chairman and managing director (South Asia), CB Richard Ellis, blamed liquidity crunch as one of the reasons behind the sluggish sales. According to Magazine, while absorption is increasing in the commercial side, the residential segment has remained stagnant. In the prime areas of Mumbai and Delhi, transactions and volume of sales fell but not prices. “So, it’s a mixed bag,” Magazine said.

For Unitech, Gurgaon, known for skyscrapers and information technology companies, clocked the maximum sales value of Rs 2,634 crore for 4.44 million sq ft sold in 2010-11. In the previous year, Unitech had sold 8.1 million sq ft, but its sales value was not immediately available. DLF sold 4 million sq ft, worth Rs 2,903 crore, in 2010-11.

In Noida and Greater Noida, Unitech sold 1.79 million sq ft for Rs 928 crore. In the previous year, it had sold 2.8 million sq ft. Similarly, the area sold in Chennai was down to 1.04 million sq ft, from 2 million sq ft, in 2010-11 at Rs 216 crore.

In 2010-11, DLF sold 5 million sq ft across Chandigarh, Chennai, Bangalore and Kochi for Rs 2,260 crore, and 1 million sq ft in Delhi and Kolkata for Rs 1,495 crore.

During 2010-11, Unitech sold 1.55 million sq ft under the non-residential category at an average realisation of Rs 6,585 per sq ft for a total booked value of Rs 1,019 crore.

In the previous financial year, it sold 3.1 million sq ft under the non-residential category at an average realisation of Rs 6,708 per sq ft for a total booked value of Rs 2,056 crore.

In the residential segment, 7.61 million sq ft was sold at an average realisation of Rs 4,341 per sq ft for a total booked value of Rs 3,305 crore. In the previous year, the company sold 13.5 million sq ft under the residential segment at an average realisation of Rs 3,677 sq ft for a total booked value of Rs 4,977 crore.

Unitech posted a 15.91 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 567.2 crore for 2010-11. It did not disclose results for the last quarter. DLF’s fourth-quarter consolidated net profit fell 19.19 per cent to Rs 344.5 crore.