Housing prices down by average 7% in January-March 2018: Report

Housing prices fell by an average 7 percent during January-March in nine major cities over the previous quarter as developers cut property rates to boost their sluggish sales, according to real estate research and analytics firm PropEquity. Unsold housing stock fell by 2 percent to 5,95,074 units during March quarter 2018 from 6,08,949 units in the previous quarter due to increase in sales volume. Housing sales rose by 8 percent during the quarter at 40,694 units from 37,555 units in the previous quarter (October -December 2017) The nine cities covered in the report are Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thane and Chennai. "...weighted average prices in the quarter fell 7 percent from Rs 6,762 per sq ft to Rs 6,260 per sq ft suggesting aggressive pricing by the developers to ignite home buyers' demand," PropEquity said in a report. On supply, it said the new home launches jumped 48 percent across 9 cities in the first quarter to 25,970 units from 17,550 units in the previous quarter as most of the developers were able to acclimatize themselves with RERA regulations and migration to GST compliances. "We expected realty market to start stabilising first quarter onwards and this is what we are witnessing now. "With this spurt of new launches in the first quarter, we expect the trend to continue with developers focusing on mid segment and affordable housing segment to take advantage of PMAY interest subsidy benefits," PropEquity founder and CEO Samir Jasuja said. He expected that ready or about to be completed units would be sold more quickly than the newly launched units. City-wise, housing sales in Bengaluru rose by 45 percent to 8,349 units, while Chennai saw 71 percent rise to 3,101 units during January-March 2018. Sales were up in Mumbai by 12 percent to 4,197 units, 31 percent in Noida at 1,108 units, 7 percent in Pune at 8,509 units, 16 percent in Kolkata at 2,543 units. However, Gurgaon witnessed 60 percent fall in sales at 1,007 units, while housing sales declined 11 percent in Hyderabad at 2,631 units and 6 percent in Thane at 9,249 units.