Housing sales up 71% in 7 major cities in Jan-Mar; highest sales since 2015

New Delhi: Housing sales across seven cities increased 71 per cent in January-March to 99,550 units, the highest quarterly sales since 2015, on low-interest rates on home loans and the growing concept of homeownership, according to property consultant Anarock.

Sales of residential properties stood at 58,290 units in the year-ago period and 90,860 in the previous quarter across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai.

On Thursday, PropTiger reported that housing sales increased 7 per cent year-on-year to 70,623 units during January-March across eight major cities, while prices appreciated by an average of 7 per cent.

Commenting on the numbers, Anarock Chairman Anuj Puri said: "The bull run in the housing market continued in the first quarter of 2022, with approx 10 per cent quarter-on-quarter and 71 per cent year-on-year growth in sales, thus recording all-time high quarterly sales since 2015".

The impact of the third COVID-19 wave was significantly lower than of the preceding two waves, he added.

"The unrelenting appetite for homeownership amid the pandemic has coupled with a growing certainty of impending price rises to speed up housing sales velocity," Puri said.

As per the data, housing sales in Hyderabad jumped to 13,140 units in Q1 2022, from 4,440 units in the year-ago period.

In Delhi-NCR, housing sales more than doubled to 18,835 units from 8,790 units, while the MMR saw a 43 per cent rise in sales to 29,130 units from 20,350 units.

Housing sales in Bengaluru grew 55 per cent to 13,450 units from 8,670 units, while demand in Pune rose 33 per cent to 14,020 units from 10,550 units.

Chennai saw sales of 4,985 units, an increase of 75 per cent from 2,850 units in Q1 2021.

Housing sales in Kolkata more than doubled to 5,990 units in January-March 2022 from 2,680 units a year ago.

On the supply side, Anarock said that new launches across the top 7 cities witnessed a 43 per cent yearly rise to 89,150 units in Q1 2022 calendar year from 62,130 units in Q1 of 2021.

Unsold inventory in the top 7 cities saw about a 2 per cent yearly decline ? from 6.42 lakh units towards Q1 2021-end to approx 6.28 lakh units by Q1 2022-end.

The average residential property prices across the top 7 cities increased in the range of 2-5 per cent in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2021, mainly due to an increase in the prices of construction raw materials. Hyderabad recorded the highest 5 per cent annual jump.