Southern cities feeling the heat of residential slowdown, says report

The western cities of Pune and MMR raced far ahead and clocked in 33% jump in sales

The southern cities of Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai have together seen residential sales decline by 5 per cent in the first three quarters of 2019 against the corresponding period in 2018, a new report has said.

The western cities of Pune and Mumbai Metropolitan Region raced far ahead and clocked in 33 per cent jump in sales over the same period. Even National Capital Region in the north recorded 15 per cent yearly rise in housing sales between January and September, a report by Anarock Property Consultants has said.

The three southern cities collectively saw residential sales of 61,400 units between January and September as against 64,420 units sold in the first three quarters of 2018. MMR and Pune saw the sale of nearly 93,930 units in 2019 against 70,740 units in the corresponding period in 2018. Altogether, the top 7 cities recorded sales of 2,02,200 units in 2019 till September, of which western cities comprised 46 per cent overall share while southern region consisted of 30 per cent share. 

Concurrently, new launches in southern cities were also restricted this year and witnessed a mere  3 per cent yearly growth — from 48,410 units in first three quarters of 2018 to 50,070 units this year. MMR and Pune, on the other hand, saw a significant 65 per cent growth in new supply in a year — from 61,040 units in 2018 to over 1,00,470 units in 2019 (more than double the new supply in the main southern cities). In NCR, new launches rose by 59 per cent in a year from 17,230 units in 2018 to 27,390 units this year.

Amidst declining residential sales and restricted new supply, the southern cities shed unsold stock by 11 per cent during the same period, while their western counterparts largely maintained status quo. 

As on Q3, the southern cities have a combined unsold stock of nearly 119,000 units, which was over 134,000 units in 2018. MMR and Pune, meanwhile, currently have nearly 313000 unsold units — almost the same as last year. This was largely due to the ample new supply added in the market during this year.