Real estate market to stay buyer-friendly in 2018

A significant amount of unsold inventory, as much as 4.4 lakh housing units across the country at the end of 2017,  is expected to ensure that capital values across most markets will be kept buyer friendly to ensure sales velocity, says a report by JLL India. As many as 4.4 lakh residential units remain unsold across key cities of India at the end of 2017. The unsold inventory of completed (ready – to – move in) residential units is estimated at 34,700 units in the top cities of India. Delhi – NCR has the highest volume at around 150,654 units that remained unsold in 2017, while Chennai had the highest percentage of completed unsold inventory at close to 20 percent, the report said. It also noted that Kolkata had the lowest volume of unsold inventory at approximately 26,000 units. A significant volume of unsold inventory will ensure that the capital values across most markets will be kept buyer friendly to ensure sales velocity. Also, with a slowdown in launches, across the markets, we can expect to see more unsold inventory to get absorbed in the next few quarters. As a trend, end users have been inclined to enter the market closer to date of completion, which will further accelerate absorption of the unsold units. Capital values remain stable with a downward bias across most markets making it buyer favourable.