Housing sales in top-7 cities up 54%, top previous high of 2014: Anarock

Current sales momentum is likely to continue in first quarter of 2023; most of the sales are driven by end-users

Despite the sustained hike in property prices and home loan interest rates in 2022, housing sales in the top-7 cities have hit a new peak in 2022, breaching the previous high of 2014, according to an Anarock study.

About 364,900 units have been sold so far this calendar year against 236,500 units in 2021 across the top-7 cities, up 54 per cent year on year (YoY), the report said.

The study says the last peak was seen in 2014 when 343,000 units were sold in the National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.

MMR had the highest sales of about 1,09,700 units in 2022, followed by NCR (63,700 units). The report found that the two realty hotspots are once again the leading residential markets.

Meanwhile, Chennai and Kolkata had fewer sales than other cities. During the year, some 16,100 units were sold in Chennai, 21,200 units in Kolkata.

“The year 2022 has been a phenomenal one for residential real estate despite headwinds such as rising property prices, interest rate hikes and geopolitical tensions. Housing sales in top-7 cities breached the previous highs of 2014, while new launches in comparison were restricted,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock Group.

While it was widely anticipated that the rise in property prices and interest rates towards the second half of 2022 would have a cascading impact on residential sales, Q4 of calendar 2022 remained quite robust, with as many as 92,160 units sold in the period, Puri added.

“Interestingly, NCR was the shining star in 2022, as it deliberately restricted new supply in the year to about 22,350 units, while registering robust sales of 63,700 units,” Puri said.

Meanwhile, fresh launches across the top-7 cities rose 51 per cent YoY, from 236,700 new units in 2021 to nearly 357,600 in 2022. MMR and Hyderabad have had the maximum new launches in 2022, jointly grabbing nearly 54 per cent share of this space.

In fact, these two cities along with Pune and Bengaluru accounted for 86 per cent of the total addition of new units.

Puri said the current sales momentum is likely to continue in the first quarter of 2023. The appetite for home ownership has remained unsatiated, with most of the sales being driven by end-users. However, some risks loom around the residential segment. Much will depend on how home loan interest rates pan out over the next year.

Prices have risen by 4-7 per cent a year primarily due to an increase in input costs, demand comeback post-Covid, and one per cent dip in available inventory in the fourth quarter of 2022, despite strong new housing supply throughout the year.