Home sales in Delhi NCR slip by 17% in December quarter

Mumbai: Home sales in the National Capital Region (NCR) have dipped further by 17% to 13,279 units in the October-December quarter of 2018-2019 even as the overall residential market improved by 5%, according to a latest report by Liases Foras Real Estate Rating & Research Ltd, a real estate advisory firm.

Across eight cities, including Mumbai, Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru, home sales increased to 69,886 units during October-December from 65,520 in the same period a year ago.

While Chennai and Hyderabad posted the highest home sales growth of 22% and 18%, respectively, the NCR was the only market that saw a fall, according to the third-quarter home sales report released on Wednesday.

During the full year 2018, new housing projects shot up by 81% to 211,502 units as compared to 2017 when developers remained cautious about bringing new inventory into the market and focussed on completing its existing projects. New launches were pronounced in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune than in the rest of the cities, the report said.

"The surge (in launches) is due to the base effect because 2017 was a year of major policy changes and the general market sentiment was noticeably low," said the report adding that 2018 was "visibly a year of recovery with a revival in market sentiment and future expectations”.

The report pointed out that while a few reforms like the Real Estate Regulation (and Development) Act (RERA) and the goods and services tax (GST) led to apprehensions initially, other interventions like the increase in the limit of size of flats for subsidy under Prime Minister Awaj Yojana (PMAY) among others have brought confidence back for both home-buyers and developers.

Despite improvement in demand and new launches, homes prices continued to remain under pressure. During the third quarter, overall homes prices dipped by 1%. While Hyderabad saw home prices increasing by 7%, Ahmedabad and Pune grew by 1%, respectively. However, prices declined by 3% in the NCR and Chennai while Bangalore and Kolkata witnessed a 2% drop, according to the report.