House that: Anarock says home sales up 29% in March qtr, JLL finds down 7%

Two property consultants, Anarock and JLL, on Thursday came out with contrasting reports on home sales in the March quarter of calendar year 2021 (CY21).

Housing sales in the top seven cities in the country rose by 29 per cent in Q1CY21 year-on-year (YoY), Anarock Property Consultants said in its report. As many as 58,290 homes were sold in the top seven cities in the quarter, compared with to 45,200 units a year ago.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Pune together accounted for 53 per cent of sales in the quarter, it said. Sales increased by 46 per cent in the MMR, and by 47 per cent in Pune. With about 8,670 units sold, Bengaluru was the only city among the top seven to not record a major yearly change in numbers, it said.

However, US-based consultant JLL said home sales in the top seven cities fell seven per cent in Q1CY21, compared with a year ago. But it said residential sales in the quarter recovered to around 90 per cent of the volumes seen in Q1CY20 (pre-Covid).

Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Pune surpassed sales volumes of Q1CY20, and overall sales increased by 17 per cent on a sequential basis, JLL said. Importantly, sales either improved or stayed at similar levels in Q1 in a majority of the residential markets under consideration. Mumbai has consistently been the largest contributor to sales in the last four quarters, and in Q1 it accounted for 23 per cent of sales, followed by Delhi NCR with a share of 21 per cent, JLL said.

Anarock said that new launches rose by 51 per cent in the quarter to 62,130 units in Q1CY21, from 41,220 units a year ago. Again, Bengaluru was the only city to see an 11 per cent drop in new launches. MMR, Pune, and Hyderabad together contributed 66 per cent of the new supply, it said.

Despite the increase in launches, unsold inventory in the top seven cities saw a nominal yearly decline — from 644,000 units at the end of Q1CY20 to around 642,000 units by the end of Q1 CY21.

Anuj Puri, chairman, Anarock Property Consultants, said, “Demand boosters like stamp duty cuts, further reductions in home loan rates by most banks (to 6.70 per cent) and ongoing developer discounts and offers helped the residential sector stage a convincing comeback in Q1 2021. Egged on by buoyant sales and enthusiastic consumer sentiment in the October-December period, developers launched several new projects in this quarter, with some spill-over from the 2020 pipeline.”

Puri said MMR and Pune were the most active because of limited-period stamp duty cuts and other sops and discounts, which substantially reduced acquisition cost. “MMR’s homebuyers have responded proactively to the bottomed-out property prices in the country’s most expensive real estate market. This is adequately vouchsafed by the significant rise in property registrations in Mumbai in the first two months of the year.”

Housing affordability could potentially remain extremely favourable throughout 2021. If the current sops and incentives continue, we will see sustained vibrancy in the upcoming quarters as well. End-users will drive maximum demand, Puri said.

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