Lodha sells properties worth Rs 850 cr in Feb

Realty firm Lodha group has sold housing properties worth Rs 850 crore in February and expects its annual bookings to cross last fiscal's Rs 6,400 crore mark, beating demand slowdown.
Sales bookings of the Mumbai-based group declined to about Rs 400 crore level in November and December due to adverse impact of demonetisation but the sales picked up from January, a company official said.
"Our new sales bookings stood at about Rs 850 crore in February, which is highest monthly sales in this fiscal. In October, which is a festival month, we did sales of about Rs 800 crore," Lodha Group Chief Sales Officer Prashant Bindal told PTI.

Two projects, World Towers and Palava, in the Mumbai Metropolitan region contributed the most to overall sales bookings.
Bindal said sales have picked up, especially in low-cost homes category, after the government's announcement of infrastructure status to the affordable housing.
The company sold over 850 units in February across price points ranging from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 10 crores and across projects from mass to luxury housing.

"The customer response to our new launches has been very good, especially when there have been contradictory theories about the economy and real estate sector's performance," he said.
"Our belief is that the real estate demand is India is very strong and sustainable for high quality product from credible developers and this strong performance shows that the adverse effects of demonetisation have now passed and market is returning to normal operating conditions," he added.

The privately-held Lodha group is currently developing around 4.1 crore sq ft of residential real estate and has 31 ongoing projects across London, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Pune and Hyderabad. Last fiscal, Lodha Group delivered 6,800 units across projects.