NEW DELHI: Housing sales surged 67% year-on-year (YoY) during the January-June (H1CY2020) period to 99,416 units across India’s top eight cities on better demand primarily from two Maharashtra cities- Mumbai and Pune, according to real estate consultant Knight Frank.
The two cities together constituted over 45% of the total sales amongst key markets. While residential sales in Mumbai grew by 53% YoY in H1CY2021 to 28,607 units, in Pune it grew by 74% to 17, 474 units. “These two markets were given their orbital velocity by the Maharashtra government’s decision to lower stamp duty rates for a limited period,” the property consultant said.
Maximum growth in sales was seen in Hyderabad market as sales in the cyber hub city grew by 150% YoY to 11,974 units. Hyderabad was followed by Delhi NCR (11,474 units) and Chennai 5751 (units). Knight Frank said that while residential sales started to show a resurgence, the momentum got impacted by the second wave of the pandemic towards the end of March 2021.
Fortunately, the second wave, despite its extremely morbid potency, was less severe on the residential real estate market, it added. However, housing sales this year (99,416) is still 25.42% lower than 1,33,317 units that were sold in the first six months of 2019, the pre-pandemic year.
Knight Frank India Chairman and Managing Director Shishir Baijal said, “We expect that we will do better than 2020 in housing sales.” With stable property prices and historically low interest rates on home loans, sales momentum to continue during the second half of this year, he added.