Even as all-India housing prices went up, Delhi saw a fall in Q1: RBI data

Housing prices in Delhi have fallen marginally for the first time over the last eight years even as all-India house prices went up by an average of 5.3 per cent in the quarter ended June 2018, according to RBI data.

"Except Delhi, all other cities recorded a rise in housing price on an annual basis," Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its quarterly release on House Price Index (HPI) for Q1 of 2018-19 fiscal.

The HPI for Delhi stood at 341.6 in the first quarter this fiscal, slightly lower than 341.9 HPI in the corresponding quarter last financial year. The base year is 2010-11 with HPI 100.

The HPI is based on transactions data received from housing registration authorities in ten major cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kanpur and Kochi.

"On a year-on-year basis, the all-India HPI recorded a growth of 5.3 per cent in Q1 2018-19 as against 6.7 per cent in the previous quarter (Q4 2017-18) and 8.7 per cent a year ago (Q1 2017-18)," the bank said.

Both in terms of annual and sequential growth rates, large divergences were observed in city-wise house price movements, RBI said.

While Kochi recorded the highest surge of 41.2 per cent in the past one year, Kolkata saw the minimum year-on-year appreciation of 1.2 per cent in the first quarter. Delhi was the only city among the 10 where house prices saw an actual decline.

However, sequentially over the fourth quarter last fiscal, the first quarter of 2018-19 recorded a 2.5 per cent hike and, interestingly, Delhi led the lot with highest increase of 5.3 per cent.

"City-wise, large variance were observed in sequential terms, with Delhi recording the highest rise (5.3 per cent) and Kanpur recording the maximum contraction (-2.4 per cent)," RBI said.