Realty index drops 48% since Jan 14 high

Real estate stocks have been hit the hardest on the bourses with many of them, including Sobha Developers, Purvankara Projects and Ansal Housing, hitting one-year lows after investors fled sensing a slowdown in property rates.

With Wednesday's fall, the BSE Realty Index fell 48 per cent from its all-time high of 13,647.15 on January 14, 2008, as compared to 28 per cent decline in the benchmark BSE's Sensex from its peak of 20,873.33 on January 8.

The sector, which is top five in terms of market capitalisation rankings two months ago, slipped to number eight position on Wednesday.

Sobha Developers (Rs 573.20), Purvankara Projects (Rs 201.30), Omaxe (Rs 192), Mahindra Lifespace (Rs 375), Parsvnath Developers (Rs 190), Ansal Housing (Rs 142), Anant Raj Industries (Rs 176), D S Kulkarni Developers (Rs 132.60) and Lok Housing (Rs 125.15) touched one-year lows on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday. 
 

IN REAL TROUBLE
Price in Rs	52-Wk high	Mar-19	% fall
Parsvnath	598.00	192.50	67.81
Kolte Patil	272.00	89.75	67.00
HDIL	1432.00	505.85	64.68
Orbit Corpn	1079.95	401.65	62.81
Mah Lifesp	907.00	383.25	57.75
Brigade Ent	428.00	183.85	57.04
Unitech	546.80	267.30	51.12
DLF	1225.00	623.00	49.14
Akruti City	1399.00	722.00	48.39
Indiabulls	847.80	443.25	47.72

The trend is in line with an overall slowdown in the property market. Yesterday, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) failed to get bids for two of the five plots that it auctioned in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai.

The realty index was the biggest loser on Wednesday after it declined more than 2 per cent even as the Sensex rose by 1 per cent. The index declined 155.30 points from 7,243 to close at 7,087.70 on Wednesday, while on the other hand the Sensex was gained 161.37 points to close at 14,994.83 against its previous day's close of 14,833.46.

Realty stocks such as DLF, Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers, Indiabulls Real Estate and HDIL fell in the range of 1-4 per cent each, bucking the overall buoyant market sentiment.