Housing sales decline 30% across 9 major cities in Q3 over poor demand

Housing sales declined 30 per cent during the third quarter of this fiscal year to around 64,000 flats across nine major cities on poor demand amid economic slowdown, according to a PropTiger's report.

Sales in the residential property market fell 13 per cent to 2,63,294 units during the first nine months of this fiscal as against 228,220 units in the corresponding period of the previous year.

In its 'Real insight Q3FY20' report, the News Corp-backed company said that housing sales across nine cities fell 30 per cent during the October-December quarter despite the government launching several measures in the recent past to revive buyer sentiment.

Compared to 91,464 units sold during the quarter last year, only 64,034 homes were sold across the nine markets in Q3 this year.

PropTiger, which recently raised USD 70 million funds from News Corp and its Australian group firm REA, tracks property markets of Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Gurugram (including Bhiwadi, Dharuhera and Sohna), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai (including Navi Mumbai and Thane), Pune and Noida (including Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway).

"The various measures launched by the government in the recent past to revive growth in the real estate market seem to have made little impact," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO of Elara Technologies that owns Housing.com, Makaan.com and Proptiger.

"Considering real estate is a major contributor to overall gross domestic product (GDP), which hit a glacial 4.5 per cent rate of growth in the July-September period, we expect further assistance from the government, which would nudge buyers to invest in real estate," he added.

According to the data of each of the nine cities, Bengaluru registered a 50 per cent fall in sales numbers at 5,155 units.

Hyderabad saw 44 per cent dip in sales at 4,372 units, followed by Pune that witnessed 39 per cent fall at 11,946 units. Housing sales in Noida declined 38 per cent to 2,830 units, Chennai and Kolkata, both cities, reported 33 per cent fall at 3,015 units and 2,566 units, respectively.

Housing sales in Mumbai dropped by 18 per cent to 25,198 units and 14 per cent in Ahmedabad at 5,118 units.

Gurugram in the Delhi-NCR market was least affected with 6 per cent dip in sales to 3,834 units during the October-December quarter of 2019-20 fiscal year.

PropTiger report also mentioned that unsold inventories declined by 3 per cent during the third quarter at 7,97,723 units from 7,74,860 units at the end of September 2019.

"At the current sales velocity, builders would take 29 months to sell off the existing stock," it added.

Average values of property increased by 13 per cent year-over-year in Hyderabad, the highest increase among all the cities included in the report, while Gurugram and Ahmedabad registered 6 per cent and 5 per cent increase, respectively.

In other cities, prices showed only nominal increases, between one and three per cent.