Housing sales down 67% in April-June due to Covid-19 lockdown: Report

Housing sales fell 67 per cent at 21,294 units across nine major cities during April-June due to outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and natiowide lockdown, according to data analytics firm PropEquity.

Recently, property consultant Anarock had released its data that showed an estimated 81 per cent fall in sales at 12,740 units across seven cities during April-June this year.

According to PropEquity, total housing sales during April-June 2020 stood at 21,294 units, down 67 per cent from64,378 units in the year-ago period.

Barring Noida, all other eight cities witnessed a decline in sales.

Gurugram saw 79 per cent fall to 361 units for the period under review as compared to 1,707 units in same period last year.

Housing sales in Chennai and Hyderabad plunged 74 per cent at 996 units and 1,522 units, respectively.

Bengaluru witnessed 73 per cent dip to 2,818 units from 10,583 units, while Kolkata saw 75 per cent decline to 1,046 units from 4,152 units.

In Maharashtra, the sales of residential properties in Mumbai fell 63 per cent to 2,206 units. The demand was down by 56 per cent and 70 per cent in Thane and Pune at 5,999 units and 5,169 units, respectively.

However, Noida in the national capital region market bucked the trend to register 5 per cent growth in sales volume to 1,177 units during April-June this year from 1,123 units in the corresponding period of the previous year.

New launches fell 78 per cent to 11,967 units, while unsold inventories were down 5 per cent to 6,07,665 units during the period under review.

"These are unprecedented times for the world economy and India is one of the hardest hit countries due to COVID-19. Real estate sector which was slowly coming up by March was hit with a complete halt in construction and sales activities by March last week," PropEquity founder and MD Samir Jasuja said.

He said large developers with low debt leverage will ride out the storm and do reasonably well going forward within the context of the new normal.

"We may witness resizing of units, discounts, amenities and special payment schemes to be offered by developers to create demand, especially during the upcoming festive season, Jasuja said.

P E Analytics owns and operates PropEquity, which is an online real estate data and analytics platform covering over 1,18,010 projects of 34,217 developers across over 44 cities.