Delhi-NCR witnesses 62% rise in new home launches in Jan-March

New Delhi: Launches of new homes increased by 62 percent to 4,600 units in Delhi-NCR during January-March period despite sluggish demand and huge unsold stocks, according to property consultant Cushman & Wakefield.

Of the total launches, over 40 percent were seen in the affordable housing segment.

Average ticket price in the affordable housing segment (below Rs 40 lakh) have fallen by 10 percent in last two years with developers reducing the basic selling price and also cut in launch rates.

In its report for residential segment for the first quarter of this calendar year, the consultant said the launches of new homes increased to 4,600 units from 2,800 in the same period last year.

Developers in Delhi-NCR have focused on the affordable segment that accounted for 41 percent of total launches in the January March quarter with launch of 1,855 units. This represented a 67 percent increase from the corresponding quarter last year.

The consultant also said developers were able to reduce the ticket price of flats in affordable housing segment through a mixed strategy of lowering the average launch prices and by resizing the units.

While the average launch price witnessed a decline of 2 percent in the period under review to Rs 3,190 per sq ft, the average size of units fell by 8 percent to 1,030 sq ft compared with the first quarter of 2014.

Accordingly, the average ticket price has dropped to Rs 32.8 lakh as against Rs 36.3 lakh in January-March 2014, the data showed.

"The conscious effort by developers in Delhi-NCR to increase the attractiveness of the affordable segment comes at a time when launch of affordable units has remained comparatively high," C&W said.

Overall in the eight major cities of the country, new homes launches rose by 27 percent in January-March 2015 to 31,200 units from 24,700 units in the year-ago period.

Besides NCR, the other seven cities are Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

Kolkata witnessed the maximum rise in launches 71 percent to 3,700 units during the period under review.