Luxury home sales muted; builders manage to sell only 45% of 13k units launched in 3 yrs: Report

Real estate developers have been able to sell only 45 per cent of luxury homes (priced above Rs 3 crore) launched during the last three years, with investors still shying away from putting money in premium properties due to lower returns, according to PropTiger data.

Housing brokerage firm PropTiger, which is owned by News Corp and Softbank-backed Elara Technologies, reported that only 5,926 luxury units have been sold till January this year, out of the 13,290 homes launched by developers across nine major cities during the last three calendar years (2017-2019).

The cities covered in the analysis are Ahmedabad (including Gandhinagar), Bengaluru, Chennai, Gurugram (including Bhiwadi, Dharuhera and Sohna), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai (including Navi Mumbai and Thane), Pune and Noida (including Greater Noida, Noida Extension and Yamuna Expressway).

As per the data, 1,131 units were launched at a price above Rs 7 crore and only 554 have been sold.

Similarly, 3,656 units were launched in a price range of Rs 5-7 crore, and only 1,631 flats have been sold so far.

In the price bracket of Rs 3-5 crore, as many as 8,503 units were launched, of which 3,741 units got sold.

"Real estate in India has been under immense pressure because of an on-going demand slowdown. This has impacted the residential real estate sector across the board, including the luxury housing segment," said Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO of PropTiger and Housing.com.

The demand for luxury homes fell post-demonetisation, and that trend has not changed much since, he added.

"The on-going crisis involving the coronavirus pandemic is likely to further impact demand across the residential real estate sector in H1 FY21, including luxury housing, Agarwala said.

However, he said the NRI customers might buy luxury housing if the fall in the value of the Indian rupee continues.

Anarock, PropTiger, Anil Ambani-led Reliance group backed Square Yards, Quikr Realty, Investors Clinic and Wealth Clinic are major players in organised housing brokerage segment.

The commercial leasing business is dominated by global property consultants like JLL, CBRE, Knight Frank, Cushman & Wakefield, Colliers and Savills.