Kolkata tops new housing launches in Q3, 2018

Kolkata: The festive season in the metropolis has brought joy in residential real estate as it topped in launching of new houses among the major seven cities of the country in the Q3 period of 2018.

"Kolkata saw the launch of nearly 4,050 units. This is a significant rise of 59 percent from Q2 2018 and an increase of more than 500 percent over Q3 2017," real estate consultant Anarock said in its latest report.

The top seven cities (NCR, MMR, Chennai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad) saw 52,150 new units launched in Q3 2018. This is a low single digit increase of three percent over Q2 2018 of 50,600 units.

However, it is a 51 percent jump in new housing against corresponding Q3 2017. Purchases also rose by 15 percent this quarter as against Q3 2017.

Mumbai Metropolitian Region (MMR) saw the launch of approximately 19,850 units a rise of 42 percent from Q2 2018. But, National Capital Region (NCR) contributed only 8 percent of the new supply with 4,200 units. This marked a slump of 50 percent of units from the previous quarter.

Low-budget range housing continues to keep the momentum going. This segment saw a nearly 65 percent increase in supply in Q3 2018 (below Rs 40 lakh) against the same period last year, Anarock said.

While in terms of purchases, there was a slight increase of 9 percent during Q3 compared to Q2 2018 across the top seven cities. This indicates that even though home buyers sentiments are positive, many continue to wait and watch.

Anarock's Real Estate Consumer Outlook Survey confirms that nearly 61 percent prospective buyers are looking to buy their property within the next one year. Given this, the festive season may bring a boost to the real estate sector this year.