House sales sees surge in metros

Hyderabad PROPEQUITY India's real estate data, research and analytics firm has released a report on house sales. The study says that home sales rose by 23 per cent across top seven cities in India in the first five months of 2021 to 1,32,818 units versus 1,08,199 units in the first five months of 2020 till Apr-15.

Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, and Pune are the cities where home sales witnessed a growth in first five months of 2021 versus first five months of 2020 at 16 per cent, 40 per cent, 39 per cent, 29 per cent and 34 per cent respectively. Only Kolkata and Delhi, NCR witnessed drop of 11 per cent and 20 per cent respectively in home sales during the same period.

Sales in NCR were greatly impacted as the National Capital faced a major brunt of the second Covid wave in which city went to standstill to tackle the health emergency. This was followed by a stringent lockdown further impacting housing sales.

"India witnessed the worst of Covid wave in the months of April and May which drastically stopped almost all real estate activity across major cities. Fortunately, the worst is behind us as the infection and Covid related deaths have fallen significantly in major cities resulting in the relaxation of Covid related restrictions. The vaccination drive has also picked up pace and hopefully there will be limited impact from the third wave. We expect home sales to bounce back faster as the Covid recovery has been at a rapid pace," Samir Jasuja, Founder, Managing Director, PropEquity said.

The new supply or launches of housing units decreased by 24 per cent in the same period to 86,746 units from 1,13,699 units as developers were clearing earlier stock, resizing home offerings and waiting for economy to improve.