Elara, ISB launch housing pricing index to track realty trends

New Delhi Homebuyers are re-examining and re-exploring their relationship to their homes and the need to own a space more suitable for the growing culture of Work From Home (WFH). Keeping this in mind, realty company in collaboration with the Indian School of Business (ISB), launched Housing Pricing Index (HPI), which would allow experts and homebuyers to map the economic activity in real-estate.

Elara Technologies, a real-estate technology platform, collaborated with the Indian School of Business' (ISB), Srini Raju Centre for IT and the Networked Economy (SRITNE) to create the HPI to serve as a tool that tracks changes in residential home prices across India's eight major markets namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, National Capital Region (NCR), Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.

On the launch of the HPI, Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (GoI), said, "Prior to 2007, we already had one index of this kind used by the National Housing Bank and Reserve Bank of India and that had a quarterly nature which was capturing the information coming in from the housing construction finance companies or the data coming in from the registration of the State government. But here this new HPI capturing data directly from the developers, builders and ISB using the big analytics, this is going to be very much a robust system."

"At this time, it is essential to track the growth via credible sources that will help authorities make quicker and informed decisions during such exogenous shocks," Mishra added. The index captures data on pricing (residential), and quantity on a pan India aggregate level and also at city level.

Rajendra Srivastav, Dean, Indian School of Business, said that this index would help the experts and decision-makers in the industry and government by providing relevant information on the real estate market and design effective action and interventions.

Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani, President, NAREDCO, one of the apex bodies of realty in India, also expressed his views stating that such a provision for realty industry was long overdue for both buyers as well as developers. "People interested in real estate – buyers and sellers – have also been going through a tough time tracking the sector and gauging the right time to take an informed decision. Introducing the data index for Real Estate, one of the vital economic growth anchors, is a leap forward."

The portal tracked realty trends in the eight major cities from 2017 till present in housing segment of 1 BHK, 2 BHK and 3 BHK. There data collected for to calculate HPI include information on price per square foot, quantity, and the total value of transactions in the previous three months for various sub-localities within each city. It also includes other details such as the number of bedrooms, construction status, and the number of inventory units. On the continues upward trend for the realty segment amid Covid-19 pandemic, Sharad Mittal, CEO, Motilal Oswal Real Estate Investment Advisors, said, "While there is a hiatus right now on account of the second Covid wave, we believe that activity will boomerang quickly and demand will remain strong over the next 24-36 months."