Post Festive Season for Realty Sector

Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, Housing.com, Makaan.com & PropTiger.com. The festival season provided a lot of respite for the real estate sector as many developers clocked in strong sales over the last month and a half. This goes to show that despite the cha

BY Realty Plus
Published - Wednesday, 25 Nov, 2020

Dhruv Agarwala, Group CEO, Housing.com, Makaan.com & PropTiger.com. The festival season provided a lot of respite for the real estate sector as many developers clocked in strong sales over the last month and a half. This goes to show that despite the challenging macro environment there are consumers in the market, who remain interested in buying homes. The COVID- 19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of owning a home and that was visible in the sales numbers during the festival season. Sentiment also plays an important role in this sector and the positive consumer response we have seen during this season is a good indicator that the overall mood of consumers is gradually improving. In the last financial year, we witnessed modest demand during the festival season, driven by concerns around the liquidity situation of builders in the wake of the NBFC crisis. This year’s festival season sales demonstrate that the sector has weathered the challenges of the liquidity crisis and has remained resilient in the face of the global health crisis. This bodes well for the sector going forward. The resilience of the sector and improving sales could be attributed in large measure to the various Government initiatives intended to revive the economy. In the recent Virtual residential demand Index by Housing.com, the demand for homes is gaining momentum in Tier II & Tier III cities or 'shadow cities’, especially post the nationwide lockdown. Overall traffic in top-8 cities (buy and rent) has seen uptick, with the index reaching highest up till now. Driven by an increase in digital adoption and consumer aspirations, these cities continued to show a positive trend during the festival season and we expect this trend to sustain.