Housing sales up 3% in H1 in top 8 cities; launches up 46%: Knight Frank

Housing sales rose marginally, just 3 per cent, in the first half this year to over 1.24 lakh units in eight major cities despite fall in prices, Knight Frank India said.

The property consultant today released its key 'India Real Estate' report which tracks primary property markets of eight cities-- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad.

It said that launches of new homes rose 46 per cent during the January-June period of 2018 to 91,739 units in these eight cities, compared with 62,738 units in the year-ago period.

The unsold inventory level dropped by 17 per cent to 4,97,289 units, it said.

Taking a longer view however, it said: "Both sales and launches have grown over the past 18 months and are at their highest level since the demonetisation period at approximately 1,24,000 and 92,000 units respectively."